John Paul II - christiansquoting.org.uk

It is not possible to speak of the right to choose when a clear moral evil is involved, when what is at stake is the commandment Do not kill!- John Paul II (1920-)

It is important to speak of suffering and death in a way that dispels fear. Indeed, dying is a part of life. - Pope John Paul II in Austria: Message to the sick and suffering June 1998

I confirm that euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.- Evangelium Vitae- Gospel of Life- Pope John Paul II - 1995

While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it's final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of " the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit. - Evangelium Vitae-Gospel of Life Pope John Paul II- 199

The right to profess the truth must always be upheld, but not in a way that involves contempt for those who may think differently. ~John Paul II

Did you ever read the Koran? I recommend it. What the Koran teaches people is aggression; and what we [Christians] teach our people is peace. . . . Christianity aspires to peace and love. Islam is a religion that attacks.If you start teaching aggression to the whole community, you end up pandering to the negative elements in everyone. You know what that leads to: Such people will assault us. ---Pope John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (1920- ) (In Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi's _His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time_ [1996])

Murder is murder is murder. - John Paul II to the IRA , Ireland, 1979, quoted in Brenda Maddox, Maggie the First Lady, p134

Power is responsibility: it is service, not privilege. --- John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (1920- ) _An Invitation to Joy_ [1999]

The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.-John Paul II, London, 9 June 1991

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.- John Paul II, 1986

The Islamic Law of Apostasy

The Islamic Law of Apostasy: join our campaign for its abolition
Throughout 2009 Barnabas Fund has been running a campaign for the abolition of the Islamic apostasy law, which imposes very serious penalties on Muslims who choose to leave their faith. All schools of Islamic law specify the death sentence for apostasy, and converts face a range of other punishments, including the loss of their families and property. The law also provokes powerful hostility to apostates among Muslims.

But change is possible. Some progressive Muslim scholars have argued that the apostasy law should be abandoned, so that people can leave Islam without fear of reprisals. And in a very encouraging development, just last month a group of mainstream Muslim leaders in Britain declared that no-one should be coerced into remaining a Muslim: “It is important to say quite simply that people have the freedom to enter the Islamic faith and the freedom to leave it” (Contextualising Islam in Britain, Cambridge: Centre of Islam ic Studies, 2009, p.75). These brave voices will be strengthened by non-Muslims also calling for repeal of the law.

Below you will find an important article by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, which explains how Christians should respond to the issue of apostasy (and blasphemy) in Islam. In response to this, we invite you to sign our petition against the apostasy law, and to encourage your church and Christian friends to sign it too. The more signatures we have, the more impact we can have.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo
International Director, Barnabas Fund







Apostasy and Blasphemy in Islam: What should Christians Do?
From the Foreword to Freedom to Believe (McLean, VA: Isaac Publishing, 2009). Also published in Barnabas Aid Novemb er/December 2009.

Michael Nazir-Ali


The Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali

The Qur’an is fierce in its condemnation of apostasy (ridda) and of the apostate (murtadd). Theirs, according to it, will be a dreadful penalty (‘adhbun ‘azmun). This sentiment, which occurs in Sura 16:106, is re-expressed in other ways in other suras (chapters of the Qur’an). The interesting point to note is that the various threats of judgement and of punishment seem to relate to the next world or to life after this earthly one, rather than to this world and to this life.

Against this, we have the unanimous position of the various schools of Islamic law (fiqh) that shari‘a lays down the death penalty for adult male Muslims in possession of their faculties who apostatise. Some schools also prescribe a similar punishment for women, whilst others hold that a woman apostate should be imprisoned until she recants and returns to Islam. In addition to this, should an apostate somehow escape the ultimate penalty, his property becomes fai’, i.e. it becomes the property of the Muslim community, which may hand it over to his heirs; his mar riage is automatically dissolved and he is denied Muslim burial.

How then did such a major difference arise between the prima face teaching of the Qur’an and the provisions of shari‘a as codified by the various schools of law? The answer is that the death penalty for apostasy is to be found in the hadith, the various collections of traditions about the Prophet of Islam’s sayings and doings, and it is also found in the sunna of Muhammad and of his closest companions, the reports about their practice.

Commentators on the Qur’an, both ancient and modern, sensing this tension, have attempted to find passages that could be interpreted as teaching the death penalty for apostates. Thus 2:217, which speaks of the barrenness of an apostate’s life and work, in both this world and the next, is interpreted as meaning that apostates will be punished both in this world and in the next. Similarly, passages such as 4:88-89 are taken as justification for inflicting capital punishment on apostates.

On the other hand, there are those who take as their point of departure the Qur’anic silence on penalties in this world for apostasy. They either minimise the force of the traditions that require it or reject them altogether. It is said, for example, that the traditions that speak of the death penalty for apostates are weakly attested or from an unreliable source. If they contradict the Qur’an they are to be rejected as an accurate account of what Muhammad may have said. They are also to be rejected if they do not cohere with other accounts of his behaviour or speech.

Others point to the supposed practice of the second Caliph ‘Umar, who disliked the extreme penalty for apostasy and was followed in this by some of the early fuqaha or lawyers. More recently, this view has gained currency in some circles close to Al-Azhar As-Sharif, the premier place for Sunni learning, located in Cairo, Egypt. According to these scholars, the traditional time given to an apostate to repent must be extended to the whole of his life.

Many scholars claim that the punishment for apostasy in the time of the Prophet and of his Companions arose because rejection of the Islamic faith was linked to rebellion against the nascent Islamic state. So the punishment was not so much for apostasy as for treason. The well-known scholar, Sheikh Qaradawi, whose opinions are widely studied and followed, relying on the medieval jurist and reformer Ibn Tamiyya, distinguishes between the greater and the lesser apostasy. The lesser apostate, whilst being subject to civil penalties, would not be put to death but those who proclaim their apostasy, thus destabilising Islam and the Muslim umma (or nation), would be. This may be a useful distinction to make but is hardly a manifesto for freedom of expression or of belief.

Although apostasy is punishable by death in only a few countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan (Iran seems to be drawing back from putting it on the statute book, at the time of writing), in fact jurists will sometimes directly invoke the authority of shari‘a to sentence apostates to death. This has happened in both Iran and in Afghanistan. In addition to judicial process, those accused of apostasy can be killed in prison, through torture or poisoning, or by mobs attacking their home or place of work, or even by relatives!

Whilst apostasy, and its penalty, are applicable to Muslims, the offence of Sabb, of insulting the Qur’an or the Prophet of Islam, can also be applied to non-Muslims. Blasphemy against the Prophet is punishable by death, though the method of execution varies from one authority to another. It is this that led the Federal Shari‘a Court in Pakistan to rule out any other penalty but death for blaspheming Muhammad. The so-called “Blasphemy Law” has caused considerable grief for Christians and other non -Muslim minorities since even the expression of their belief can be construed as insulting the Prophet. The Law has also become a way of settling personal scores by accusing one’s adversary of blasphemy. There have been numerous convictions in the lower courts, though fortunately the higher courts have invariably, so far, overturned these verdicts. In the meantime, the family is left destitute and the community from which the accused comes left vulnerable to harassment and intimidation.

The irony is that Muslims claim that their prophet forgave those who insulted him and there are a number of stories to this effect in the sira (life of Muhammad) and in the hadith (there are also other stories that describe how those who insulted him were punished). Which of these attitudes is to prevail in contemporary Muslim societies?

A number of administrative and judicial attempts have been made to ease the lot of those accused of blasphemy and to make it mor e difficult to file charges of blasphemy against someone. None of these has been wholly successful. The law returns again and again to haunt the political establishment and the judiciary. The only solution is for a government to have the courage to repeal it or to abolish or suspend the death penalty altogether, thus leaving other penalties for dealing with alleged cases of “insulting religion” or blasphemy, as indeed existed before the current law was promulgated. Some of the ‘ulama (Islamic scholars) are bound to object to such steps, if the government takes them, and there may well be “popular” movements to resist the repeal or amendment of the law. Such resistance needs to be faced down and genuine objections, such as the claim that Islamic law prescribes qisas or retaliation for murder and that therefore the relatives of the murdered person have the right to seek life for life, or alternatively compensation, will have to be met. It is already the case that qisas cannot be carried out by an individual or group but must be left to the state. If the death penalty were to be abolished or suspended for all serious crime, could not the state order and enable compensation to be paid instead of the death penalty as part of its judicial and executive responsibility? These issues need further exploration but it is clear that the present blasphemy law is neither just nor compassionate and needs to be dealt with while there is opportunity.

Most Muslim countries have subscribed to international treaties, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but they subordinate such agreements to the provisions of the shari‘a, which, in many cases, negates the effect of these documents. In this connection, it is interesting to compare the UN Declaration with the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. In the latter there is no equivalent to Article 18 (on freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the former and all provisions are, ultimately, subject to shari‘a. This approach has resulted, again and again, in important rights under Article 18 of the UN Declaration being denied to people in Islamic countries on the grounds that they contravene the provisions of shari‘a. This situation has caused much frustration to human rights activists, constitutional lawyers and even progressive regimes as any provision in law can always be trumped by an appeal to shari‘a.

If the impasse created in this way is to be avoided, it is necessary for leading institutions in the Islamic world to undertake a major reform of shari‘a so that the principles of amelioration and of movement, which exist in at least some of the madhahib, or schools of law, are not only recognised but actually acted upon in both religious and other courts, as there is need. There is also, of course, the urgent task of ijtihad, i.e. a fundamental examination as to how the principles of law to be found in the Qur’an and other sources of Islamic law can be brought into a fruitful relationship with present-day conditions and requirements. This is the case, for example, in the areas of finance, family law, penal provisions, jihad and the treatment of non-Muslims in an Islamic state.

Christians, of course, in the context of dialogue with Muslims and with Islamic religious and political authorities, will encourage those who are struggling to maximise fundamental freedoms in Islamic contexts. They will also be active in advocacy for those who have fallen foul, both materially and spiritually, of traditional understandings of laws and customs regarding apostasy and blasphemy. It remains important to raise awareness of what is happening in so many parts of the world so that people can learn from, pray for and give to those who have become victims of these draconian laws and customs.

The Rt Revd Dr Nazir-Ali was until recently Bishop of Rochester.




“When I am visiting a country where Christians are under pressure, quite often a minister or a lay person will ask quietly whether I know about Barnabas Fund. When I say, ‘Yes,’ their eyes light up and they tell me how Barnabas has encouraged them with a church building, a school or medical assistance. It is this kind of ministry that needs to be supported by prayers and by generosity so that the situation of our brothers and sisters is eased a little by our love.”


Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali



International Website: www.barnabasfund.org | Follow Barnabas Fund:


Registered UK charity number: 1092935 | Company registered in England. Number: 4029536

James Agate (1877 - 1947) - christiansquoting.org.uk

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time."- James Agate (1877 -; 1947) English critic, author.

Petition against the Badman Report on Homeschooling

The Government look about to implement the Badman Report which will oppress home-schoolers. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2009/jun/05/home-education-badman
Graham Stuart MP is organising a Parliamentary Petition which we are supporting with an online petition. There is a deadline of 30th November. Please sign the petition yourself at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/badman/
Pray that many will sign this petition and that the Government will scrap this idea.

Click on my title for the link.

Aesop - christiansquoting.org.uk

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. -Aesop (c. 550 BC)

Oppose the state's control of the family.

Click the title to sign the petition.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to uphold that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child, to not undermine parents legitimately fulfilling their fundamental duties, and to assume that the best interests of their child is the basic concern of parents unless there is specific evidence to the contrary

Aeschylus (525-456 BC)- christiansquoting.org.uk

I know how men in exile feed on dreams. Aeschylus

I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils. -Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased. -- Aeschylus, Greek playwright

March for the persecuted Pakistan church

'Over recent months a number of attacks have been perpetrated against the Christian minority in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The British Pakistani Christian Association has organised a march from the Pakistani High Commission in 34-36 Lowndes Square, London, SW1X 9JN, to 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA. This march will take place on 19th December 2009, and will begin at the Pakistani High Commission at 11:00.

Among our partners for this event are:

Christian Social Link
Release International
Christian Solidarity Worldwide

Over the past few months a number of attacks on Christians and their properties have taken place in Pakistan, additionally a number of abduction, rape and forced marriage of female Christians, and false allegations of blasphemy against innocent Christians has taken place over the past year.

It is time we as the wider Christian comunity in Britain made our voices heard against the persecution of our brothers and sisters in Pakistan.

It is hoped that the march will have a number of benefits for those who have had their homes burned and destroyed and found themselves displaced.

It will encourage the Pakistani Government to move swiftly and decisively to bring to justice the perpetrators, inciters and collaborators of these outrages.
It will encourage the Pakistani Government to reform the Police Service in Pakistan.
It will encourage the Pakistani Government to make sure the rule of law is carried out for justice for those who have fallen asleep in Christ or are suffering as a result of these outrages.
It will encourage the Pakistani Government to repeal the Blasphemy Law, or add other amendments to the Blasphemy Law and enforce those amendments that have already been put into place.
It will reinforce the British Governments criticism of these incidents and encourage further international pressure on the Pakistani Government to act in accordance with the above bullet points.
It will encourage the UK Church to take more seriously its obligations towards its persecuted brothers and sisters.
Please feel free to forward this email on to Churches, organistaions and others to encourage them to attend this demonstration. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible to push this agenda forward.

For further information regarding the British Pakistani Christian Association, and the ongoing problems in Pakistan please feel free to visit our blog at:

http://britishpakistanichristian.blogspot.com


Yours faithfully in Christ

Alex Chowdhry
07951-616-793

P.s. I attach a link the Pakistani High Commission in London's website which has directions to the High Commission.

http://www.phclondon.org/HC/ContactUs.asp

Pope Adrian IV - christiansquoting.org.uk

[S]trive to imbue that people with good morals, and bring it to pass, as well through yourself as through those whom you know from their faith, doctrine, and course of life to be fit for such a work, that the church may there be adorned, the Christian religion planted and made to grow, and the things which pertain to the honor of God and to salvation be so ordered that you may merit to obtain an abundant and lasting reward from God, and on earth a name glorious throughout the ages, - Pope Adrian IV to Henry II of England, encouraging him to invade Ireland so the Irish church would come under the See of Rome. He was the only English pope.

FREE CHURCH SUSPENDS TALKS WITH KIRK

November 18, 2009
'The Free Church of Scotland has decided to suspend its regular discussions with the Church of Scotland. The biannual talks involved representatives of both denominations and had been taking place over the past 5 years. They involved a frank but friendly exchange on the theological issues which divided the two denominations, along with an acknowledgement of the good relations which exist in many localities between congregations of both churches. However, the Free Church has said that, in the light of the uncertainty over the Kirk’s position on homosexuality following the induction of an allegedly gay minister earlier this year, which appeared to be sanctioned by their General Assembly, it cannot for the time being continue “as if nothing had happened.” The decision was communicated at a recent meeting between the representatives of both churches and accepted with regret. Rev. Iver Martin, Convener of the Free Church Ecumenical Relations Committee, said, “Suspending the talks, whilst regrettable, was the most tangible way of expressing the Free Church’s discomfort with the failure of the Church of Scotland to take a thoroughly Biblical stand on the place of marriage between one man and one woman.” The Free Church continues to value and encourage the close relationship that there is between congregations of both denominations in many areas of Scotland.'

As ever, the Frees are the orthodox. I pray that if some CoS congregations secede they find unity with other Presbyterians and do not start another denomination.

Richard P. Adler - christiansquoting.org.uk

All television is children's television.-- Richard P. Adler

Mortimer J. Adler - christiansquoting.org.uk

Sin is not only manifested in certain acts that are forbidden by divine command. Sin also appears in attitudes and dispositions and feelings. Lust and hate are sins as well as adultery and murder. And, in the traditional Christian view, despair and chronic boredom -- unaccompanied by any vicious act -- are serious sins. They are expressions of man's separation from God, as the ultimate good, meaning, and end of human existence. Mortimer J. Adler (1902- 2001) American philosopher


My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy.-Mortimer J. Adler Christianity magazine: 1990

Hermann Adler - christiansquoting.org.uk

Here as in no other country, the teachings of Holy Writ are venerated...Here, as in no other empire in the world, there breathes a passionate love of freedom, a burning hatred of tyrant wrong. --Hermann Adler, dedication to memorial of Jewish soldiers killed in the Boer War, 1905Hermann Adler (30 May 1839 – 18 July 1911) Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1891 to 1911.


The object of education is not merely to enable our children to gain their daily bread and to acquire pleasant means of recreation, but that they should know God and serve Him with earnestness and devotion.- Hermann Adler

Felix Adler - christiansquoting.org.uk

The family is the school of duties... founded on love. Felix Adler German Educator August 13, 1851 - April 24, 1933

Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.
Felix Adler

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.
Felix Adler

Maryam and Marzieh Released from Iranian Prison!

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- Two Christian converts from Islam, held in Iran's notorious Evin prison for more than six months, have been released.

Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh
International Christian Concern (ICC) – www.persecution.org -- has learned that Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, two Christian converts from Islam, were released from Evin Prison in Tehran on November 18 at 3:30 pm local time.

Elam Ministries told ICC that Maryam, 27, and Marzieh, 30, were released without bail, but that they have yet to face another court hearing. November 25th will mark Marzieh’s 31st birthday.

ICC says that originally arrested on March 5 by Iranian security forces, Maryam and Marzieh were charged with anti-government activities. However, it became clear that apostasy (conversion from Islam to Christianity), not anti-state activities, was the reason for the arrest.

Taken before a Revolutionary Court hearing on August 9, Maryam and Marzieh were commanded to recant their faith, and in return, would be granted their freedom. “We will not deny our faith,” the women responded, “if we come out of prison, we want to do so with honor.”
ICC says that while detained at Evin Prison, which is notorious for its brutal conduct toward women, Maryam and Marzieh have been kept in solitary confinement and have endured extended interrogations, all the while suffering from poor health.

According to ICC, Iran issued no statement explaining the verdict for Maryam and Marzieh’s release. However, the decision follows international pressure and prayers from Christians throughout the world.

“Words are not enough to express our gratitude to the Lord and to His people who have prayed and worked for our release," said Maryam and Marzieh.
Although released, eight months of abuse and mistreatment by Iranian security forces have undoubtedly taken a toll on Maryam and Marzieh’s health. Marzieh has suffered intense headaches, toothaches, and spinal pain, while both women have been denied medical treatment.

Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager of the Middle East, said, “We celebrate with Maryam and Marzieh, and with all Christians upon hearing the news of their release. Yet, we continue to hold Iran accountable for having unjustly imprisoned and degraded two women who committed no crime.
"We condemn Iran’s tactics of intimidation and harassment used to terrorize Christians throughout the country. We call upon Iran to uphold religious freedom by allowing all Iranians to practice the religion of their choice, and to be allowed to worship freely without being threatened or discriminated against.”
ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441.
** Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. While in the UK, Michael traveled to Canada and the United States, Albania,Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany,and Czechoslovakia. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China,and Russia. Michael's volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' (MIMM) -- of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649,at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can donate online to support his stated mission of 'Truth Through Christian Journalism.

Konrad Adenauer (1876-1976)) - christiansquoting.org.uk

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. --Konrad Adenauer (1876-1976)

A thick skin is a gift from God. Konrad Adenauer (1876-1976)

Trident Missile Renewal Rejected by Annual Conference of Christian Peoples Alliance

'Meeting this weekend at their Annual Conference and AGM, activists with
the Christian Peoples Alliance party agreed to oppose the extension of the
Trident missile system, which forms the basis of Britain's nuclear policy.
The missiles must be replaced sometime between 2025 and 2030.

Supporting a resolution proposed by members of the Kingston & Surbiton
branch of the party, the rally for Christian Democrats in Britain decided
that not only are such weapons immoral, the estimated £20 billion cost of
Trident's renewal could not be justified. (See below for full text of resolution:
A Secure World.)

Joint proposer, Tony May, who works in public health policy, said:

"To approve the use of nuclear weapons or to hold them in reserve is a
form of blasphemy against God. It is a kind of idolatry. Like all idols,
our weapons research programme, testing, maintenance and delivery
mechanisms require continual payment. The Christian Peoples Alliance is
saying we refuse to worship this false god and we choose to support
investment in pursuing justice and tackling poverty, which cause much of
global instability."

Britain's nuclear weapons system is made up of four nuclear submarines.
Each sub carries up to 16 missiles on board and each missile carries three
nuclear bombs (warheads) on top. Each of these bombs is around eight times
as destructive as the bomb which flattened Hiroshima in 1945, killing over
140,000 civilians. One Trident submarine patrols the seas at all times.

In other developments at the Conference, members agreed a policy to seek
deep reforms of the international financial system, involving monetary
reform with the end of fractional reserve banking and the separation in Britain
of speculative investment banking from High Street banking. They also heard
from party Leader, Cllr Alan Craig and a message of greeting from a
representative of the African Christian Democratic Party, Keith Downs.


For more information: Tony May 07873 625396 or email press@cpaparty.org

Resolution to CPA AGM 2009
A Secure World

As Christian Democrats our commitment and expectations are rooted in a
vision of society which embodies the kingdom and goes beyond party
politics. Ours is a politics of peacemaking justice. Our understanding of
security is based on the view that all people are our neighbours, made in
the image of God. We reject the model of security that rests on
pre-emptive military intervention, the strength of arms - conventional and
nuclear - and the demonisation of the other. We seek a model of security
that puts life, justice and respect at its heart. Scripture tells us that
real security does not come from weaponry but from justice. "Integrity
will bring peace, justice give everlasting security" (Is 32:17). To be a
nation that is known for providing real security in the world, to be a
nation that truly defends the poor and needy, the CPA pledges to do all
that we can to bring peace and justice to the world.

The Christian Peoples Alliance agrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Dr Rowan Williams, in his comments this year in Japan that "To plan a
strategy around such weapons is to be defeated by them." And we stand by
the verdict of Vatican II forty years ago that "Any act of war aimed
indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or of extensive areas
along with their population is a crime against God and man himself."

1. The CPA will therefore expose the link between issues of security,
poverty and injustice and will redirect resources and research away from
military-based policies that take us to war and cause untold suffering
towards policies that work for the elimination of poverty and the
protection of the environment as a means of creating true human security.

2. We recognise that a nuclear weapons free world must be achieved
carefully and in a step by step manner. We are convinced of its
technological feasibility. Lack of political will, especially on the part
of the nuclear weapons states, is the only true barrier. As chemical and
biological weapons are prohibited, so must nuclear weapons be prohibited.

3. The nuclear weapons states have failed to disarm, while other countries
have harboured nuclear ambitions. The UK has a stated commitment to
nuclear disarmament, yet retains four armed and operational Trident
nuclear weapons submarines and describes these as 'the ultimate guarantor
of the UK's national security'. The CPA therefore pledges to work for
unilateral disarmament by the UK and to remove all reliance on nuclear
weapons owned by other states. We therefore oppose replacement of Trident.
We also agree with the leaders of the Baptist, United Reformed and
Methodist churches in describing Gordon Brown's plans to move from four to
three boats a "feeble and ineffective gesture" that do not reduce the
number of warheads.

4. The CPA calls upon all states -- particularly the nuclear weapons
states, declared and de facto -- to take the following steps to achieve
nuclear weapons abolition. We further urge the states parties to the NPT
to demand binding commitments by the declared nuclear weapons states to
implement these measures:

Pursue negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that
requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time-bound
framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons.

Rapidly complete a truly Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with a zero
threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons
development by all states.

Establish a body to deal with nuclear disarmament.

Place a moratorium on all nuclear explosions before the Treaty comes into
force.

Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems,
and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all
weapons-usable radioactive materials.

Subject all weapons-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in
all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and
establish a public international registry of all weapons-usable
radioactive materials.

Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing
through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear
hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear
weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear
test sites.

Create additional nuclear weapons free zones.

Recognise and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons,
publicly and before the World Court.

Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGOs in
planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

A world free of nuclear weapons is a shared aspiration of humanity. This
goal cannot be achieved in a non-proliferation regime that authorises the
possession of nuclear weapons by a small group of states. Our common
security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our
objective is definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.

The convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including
but not limited to the following:
withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and
dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapons-usable radioactive
materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and
other delivery systems.

The convention could also incorporate the measures listed above which
should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented,
the convention would replace the NPT.'

I left before the debate. If present I would have said that I felt about this motion like the man who said he would vote for his religion's party unless he thought they were about to gain power. I believe that MAD kept the peace in the cold war. Nations need arms to keep the peace. But for economic reasons I do not favour replacing Trident.

Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719) - christiansquoting.org.uk

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world. -

- Joseph Addison

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.~ Joseph Addison

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in. --Joseph Addison

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble. - Joseph Addison (Attributed)

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life. -- Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719)

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.--Joseph Addison

Loveliest of women! heaven is in thy soul, Beauty and virtue shine forever round thee, Bright'ning each other! thou art all divine! - Joseph Addison, Cato (1713) (Act III, sc. 2)

Talk not of love: thou never knew'st its force.- Joseph Addison, Cato (1713) (Act III, sc. 2)

Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.-- Joseph Addison, Cato (1713) (Act IV, sc. 4)

'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's Isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.
Others with towering piles may please the sight,
And in their proud aspiring domes delight;
A nicer touch to the stretch'd canvas give,
Or teach their animated rocks to live:
'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate,
And hold in balance each contending state,
To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war,
And answer her afflicted neighbours' pray'r.
Joseph Addision, _Letter from Italy to the Right Honorable Lord Halifax_, 1701
To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.
Joseph Addison , Spectator, 8 March 1711

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.
Thy Providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redressed,
While in the silent womb I lay
And hung upon the breast.

To all my weak complaints and cries
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learned
To form themselves in prayer.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From Whom those comforts flowed.

When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way;
And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be feared than they.

O how shall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare,
That glows within my ravished heart?
But thou canst read it there.

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss
Hath made my cup run o'er;
And, in a kind and faithful Friend,
Hath doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the last a cheerful heart
That tastes those gifts with joy.

When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou
With health renewed my face;
And, when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Revived my soul with grace.

Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I'll pursue
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

When nature fails, and day and night
Divide Thy works no more,
My ever grateful heart, O Lord,
Thy mercy shall adore.

Through all eternity to Thee
A joyful song I'll raise;
For, oh, eternity's too short
To utter all Thy praise!
Joseph Addison 1672-1719, The Spectator, (London: August 9, 1712).

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame
Their great Original proclaim.
Th'unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's powers display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty Hand.


Soon as the evening shades prevai
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid the radiant orbs be found?
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
"The hand that made us is divine."
Joseph Addison, in The Spectator (London, England: August 23, 1712)

How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defense!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.

In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by Thy care,
Through burning climes they pass unhurt,
And breathe in tainted air.

When by the dreadful tempest borne
High on the broken wave,
They know Thou art not slow to her,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm is laid, the winds retire,
Obedient to Thy will,
The sea, that roars at Thy command,
At Thy command is still.

From all our griefs and fears, O Lord,
Thy mercy sets us free;
While in the confidence of prayer
Our hearts take hold on Thee.

In midst of dangers, fears and death,
Thy goodness we adore;
We praise Thee for Thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more

Our life, while Thou preservest life,
A sacrifice shall be;
And death, when death shall be our lot,
Shall join our souls to Thee.
Joseph Addison, in The Spectator (London, England), September 20,1712.

Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them. - Joseph Addison,The Tatler" no. 133

Amazon.co.uk reviews

Reviewer Rank: 210. Helpful votes received on reviews & lists: 74% (1,711 of 2,328)
Have a look at the books I have read and give me some votes please. I find if you do negative reviews, especially of things the world acclaims, like Pulp Fiction, you come in for some stick. But I can stick up for myself if I decide to answer the fool according to his folly.

Thomas Adams (1583-1652) - christiansquoting.org.uk

Oh, then be ashamed, Christians, that worldlings are more studious and industrious to make sure of pebbles, than you are to make sure of pearls. -- Thomas Adams.

Our mind is where our pleasure is, our heart is where our treasure is, our love is where our life is, but all these, our pleasure, treasure, and life, are reposed in Jesus Christ. -- Thomas Adams

Sense of sin may be often great, and more felt than grace; yet not be more than grace. A man feels the ache of his finger more sensibly than the health of his whole body; yet he knows that the ache of a finger is nothing so much as the health of the whole body. - THOMAS ADAMS

The Law gives menaces. the gospel gives promises. Thomas Adams

Woman takes her being from man, man takes his well-being from woman.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Woman was principal in killing the first Adam, himself being accessory. But in killing the second Adam, man was the principal and woman had not a finger in it.= Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

True obedience hath no lead at its heels.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Naked faith is no faith.= Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

We know that there is a sun in heaven, yet we cannot see what matter it is made of, but perceive it only by the beams, light and heat. Election is a sun, the eyes of eagles cannot see it; yet we may find it in the heat of vocation, in the light of illumination, in the beams of good works.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)


Many come to these holy places, and are so transported with a desire of hearing, that they forget the fervency of praying and praising God . . . all our preaching is but to beget your praying; to instruct you to praise and worship God . . . . I complain not that our churches are auditories, but that they are not oratories; not that you come to sermons (for God’s sake, come faster), but that you neglect public prayer; as if were only God’s part to bless you, not yours to bless God. . . . Beloved, mistake not. It is not the only exercise of a Christian to hear a sermon; nor is that Sabbath well spent that despatcheth no other business for heaven . . . God’s service is not to be narrowed up in hearing, it hath greater latitude; there must be prayer, praise, adoration.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

The least faith is as precious to the believer's soul as Peter's or Paul's faith was to themselves; for it lays hold upon Christ and brings eternal salvation.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652) (On 2 Peter)

The light of nature is like a spark, the light of the gospel a lamp, the light of grace a star, but the light of glory the sun itself.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Christ is the sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line, the Scriptures being but as it were the swaddling bands of the child Jesus.= Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Religion gives riches, and riches forgets religion . . . Thus do our affections wheel about with an unconstant motion. Poverty makes us Religious, Religion rich, and riches irreligious.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)(Diseases of the Soul: A Discourse Divine, Morall, and Physicall, (London, 1616), 24)

It is a poor worship to move our hats, and not our hearts.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

One would think that punishment should procure fear, and forgiveness love; but no man more truly loves God than he is most fearful to offend Him .... we fear thee for thy justice, and love thee for thy mercy; yea, fear thee for thy mercy, and love thee for thy justice; for thou art infinitely good in both.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Devotion without instruction winds itself into superstition.= Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Lay up in the ark of thy memory not only the pot of manna, the bread of life; but even Aaron's rod, the very scourge of correction, wherewith thou hast been bettered.- Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Sins are so remitted as if they had never been committed.= Thomas Adams (1583-1652)

Return to Twickers

It is 40 years since I last saw rugby at Twickenham. That was Oxford University v South Africa, the last apartheid tour. I argued with the demonstrators saying I was going to work in Nigeria, a more practical help for Africa than their banners.

I went with my youngest, the ticket being her birthday treat. The 80,000 seat stadium is a mile from the station. Lots of enterprising homeowners have turned front gardens into fast food outlets.I have also never seen so many mounted police but I think that was for helping stop the traffic as rugby crowds are well behaved.

The game was disappointing in that the first half, at 9-9 saw no decent England try attempts. Once again all the points for us were from Johnny's boot. There was a strong wind which did not help kicking but could lift the numerous paper aeroplanes thrown towards the pitch. It you give spectators card to wave, you can expect such fun. Planes which got to the pitch gained applause. More than 14 of our team did that half.

Click on the title for photos. Second half was better and we had our try.

I was appalled by poor line of sight next to a gangway being constantly blocked by people gong to get beer. I am all for beer but when I go to a game it is to watch not to drink and pee.

Christian Peoples Alliance AGM

THe Annual Consultative Assembly and AGM of the CPA took place in Ealing yesterday and I was able to attend in the morning. Numbers were disappointing. Not quite the old story of having the party conference in a phone box though.

'In June, a quarter of a million people in Britain
voted for a Christian vision of Europe by backing candidates from the
Christian Peoples Alliance and our colleagues in The Christian Party. The
Times newspaper said the joint ticket was among the "key winners" of the
smaller parties..... Although there are 250,000 people voting for Christian
Democratic policies, the CPA has insufficient paid up members! We rely on
volunteers and the big challenge is to translate goodwill into proper
organisation and a functioning office. The reality we face is that
unprecedented numbers of people are looking for a political alternative to
the big parties. The CPA stands for values of honesty and integrity. All
that is required is for you and those like you in CPA to come forward and
be the difference the public is seeking........You can support us online by visiting:

http://www.cpaparty.org.uk/?page=help_support_us'

I leaned more about the split that took place some time ago. The CPA in Scotland put a Muslim to stand for election. Party membership is not faith based but the constitution states that candidates must agree with the Christian aims of the party. Those on the executive who supported this breach of the constitution eventually resigned. It appears they were also responsible for a great gulf between the CPA and George Hargreave's Christian Party. This rift is now healed and in June there was a joint party ticket The feeling of our meeting was that our campaign main thrust to say we not the BNP were the Christian alternative was not very helpful knocking copy.
Cllr. Alan Craig, CPA leader.

Scott Adams (1957 - )- christiansquoting.org.uk

Change is good. You go first.~Scott Adams

If you spend all of your time arguing with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be nuts. "Dilbert", Scott Adams

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end. ~Scott Adams

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?-Scott Adams

You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.-Scott Adams, US cartoonist

Samuel Adams (1722-1803) - christiansquoting.org.uk

general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader...if virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.--Samuel Adams

It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.- Samuel Adams

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. - Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.--Samuel Adams,letter to James Warren (Nov. 4, 1775)

That all the People may with united Hearts on that Day express a just Sense of His unmerited Favors -- Particularly in that it hath pleased Him, by His over ruling Providence to support us in a just and necessary War for the Defence of our Rights and Liberties; ...by defeating the Councils and evil Designs of our Enemies, and giving us Victory over their Troops -- and by the Continuance of that Union among these States, which by his Blessing, will be their future Strength & Glory. --Samuel Adams on behalf of the Continental Congress, November 3, 1778

A Prayer for the Muslim World —Samuel Zwemer (1867 – 1952)

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who hast made of one blood all nations and hast promised that many shall come from the East and sit down with Abraham in thy kingdom: We pray for thy prodigal children in Muslim lands who are still afar off, that they may be brought nigh by the blood of Christ. Look upon them in pity, because they are ignorant of thy truth.

Take away pride of intellect and blindness of heart, and reveal to them the surpassing beauty and power of thy Son Jesus Christ. Convince them of their sin in rejecting the atonement of the only Savior. Give moral courage to those who love thee, that they may boldy confess thy name.

Hasten the day of religious freedom in Turkey, Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Africa. Send forth reapers where the harvest is ripe, and faithful plowmen to break furrows in lands still neglected. May the tribes of Africa and Malaysia not fall prey to Islam but be won for Christ. Bless the ministry of healing in every hospital, and the ministry of love at every church and mission. May all Muslim children in mission schools be led to Christ and accept him as their personal Savior.

Strengthen converts, restore backsliders, and give all those who labor among Muslims the tenderness of Christ, so that bruised reeds may become pillars of his church, and smoking flaxwicks burning and shining lights. Make bare thine arm, O God, and show thy power. All our expectation is from thee.

Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son in the Muslim world, and fulfill through him the prayer of Abraham thy friend, “O, that Ishmael might live before thee.” For Jesus’ sake. Amen. -Samuel M. Zwemer, Islam and the Cross: Selections from “The Apostle to Islam,” ed. Roger S. Greenway (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2002), 153-154.

Robert Hammond Adams (1883-1975) - christiansquoting.org.uk

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.
The hungry sheep, that crave the living Bread.
Grow few, and lean, and feeble as can be,
When fed not Gospel, but philosophy;
Not Love's eternal story, no, not this,
But apt allusion, keen analysis.
Discourse well framed -- forgot as soon as heard --
Man's thin dilution of the living Word.
O Preacher, leave the rhetorician's arts;
Preach Christ, the Food of hungry human hearts;
Hold fast to science, history, or creed,
But preach the Answer to our human need,
That in this place, at least, it may be said
No hungry sheep looks up and is not fed.
Robert Hammond Adams (1883-1975) INSCRIPTION FOR A PULPIT

Key vote today

'An urgent need for prayer


Do make gospel freedom a matter for urgent prayer as today the House of Lords votes on whether the free speech clause should remain as part of the criminal law.

Lord Waddington’s clause protects free speech and religious liberty in the Government’s homophobic hatred office.

This is an issue of freedom for the gospel.

Julian Hurst, an evangelist in Chorlton, was handing out invitation cards to his church’s Easter services in a town centre when five policemen surrounded him and took away samples of his literature to investigate. The police had received complaints that he was homophobic. But neither Mr Hurst nor his leaflet had said anything about homosexuality.

More recently many will have heard about the case of Pauline Howe who wrote to Norwich City Council objecting to a gay rights march. The next thing she knew two police officers called at her house to tell her that she had committed a ‘hate incident’.

No action was taken against Mr Hurst or Mrs Howe. It is perfectly lawful to hold the Biblical view that homosexual conduct is wrong and also to preach it. But in practice the free speech protection is vitally needed to stop false allegations being made.

So do pray that Lord Waddington will succeed in the vote today and that gospel freedom will be protected. Pray also that the issues will be fairly reported by the media.

Yours in Christ,

Colin Hart
Director
The Christian Institute'

We should stay in Afghanistan

The death toll of our soldiers mounts and pressure from public opinion increases pressure on Brown to withdraw our boys. I do not agree with this sentiment.

Brown says we went there after 9/11 to catch the perpetrators. Osama, if alive, is still in hiding. There is no doubt the Taliban are his people. Combating them should be extended to their Pakistan homeland not be stopped.

Afghanistan was at civil war before the Taliban era. This is normality for the country. Remove the troops and the Afghans will be killing even more of their people. Let the Taliban win and you allow oppression, especially of women, and the further persecution of Christians.

My friends work in this country. Remove troops. War. No more Christian voluntary agency work.

There is a price to pay and we should fight on.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) - christiansquoting.org.uk

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well- wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.- John Quincy Adams

Duty is ours; results are God's. - John Quincy Adams 1831

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens understanding and softens the heart. -John Adams (1767-1848)

I inhabit a week, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair. - John Quincy Adams

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order. - John Quincy Adams

I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all. - John Adams (1767-1848) In "Adam," no. 299, "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks," 1962.

Court Ruling on Environment – the New Religion

CCFON reports,'A court ruling, giving an executive the right to sue his employer on the basis thahe was unfairly dismissed for his ‘green views’ has been criticised by the Christian Legal Centre.



In a controversial decision, the judge ruled that ‘environmentalism’ had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.



Andrea Minichiello Williams, Barrister and Director of CLC said: “When a society loses her cultural Christian heritage she loses her anchors in the law and we end up with social, moral and legal chaos with any and every view competing in the public and legal square for a place.



“This decision has a real irony about it: whilst the Court seems to be simply extending the definition of what is regarded as ‘religion', implying that what is basically a scientific experiment should be respected as much as the historic, community-enhancing and establishment-linked main stream religion, the very same judiciary are failing spectacularly, month by month, in safeguarding the fundamental religious rights of Christians.”



Tim Nicholson, 42 and from Oxford, had told a previous court hearing that his views were so strong that he refused to travel by air and had renovated his house to be environmentally-friendly.



In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change… is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations". The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.



John Bowers QC, representing Mr Nicholson’s employers, had argued that adherence to climate change theory was "a scientific view rather than a philosophical one", because "philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof."



That argument has now been dismissed by Mr Justice Burton, who last year ruled that the environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore was political and partisan.



The decision allows the Employment Tribunal to go ahead, but more importantly, sets a precedent for how environmental beliefs are regarded in English law.



Mr Nicholson hailed the Employment Appeals Tribunal ruling as "a victory for common sense" but stressed climate change was "not a new religion".



He said: "I believe man-made climate change is the most important issue of our time and nothing should stand in the way of diverting this catastrophe.



"This philosophical belief that is based on scientific evidence has now been given the same protection in law as faith-based religious belief.



"Belief in man-made climate change is not a new religion, it is a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence."



The grounds for Mr Nicholson's case stem from changes to employment law made by Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, in the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations 2003. The regulations effectively broaden the protection to cover not just religious beliefs or those "similar" to religious beliefs, but philosophical beliefs as well.


On 4 November 2009, Lord Warner spoke in a House of Lords debate referrring to the case. He said:

"This is a major change of ruling by the courts and the BBC might like to ponder that ruling when considering its [religious] programming arrangements. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response."


Andrea Minichiello Williams added: “At a time when the Government is playing politics with religion, society should be able to look to the Courts for balanced, carefully thought-out judgments, not more political correctness”.'

For a long time global warming has been reported as a strong belief, an article of modern faith. Now it is confermed as a new religion. I remain an unbeliever. Life is cyclical in matters of climate.

John Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery of party, faction, and division of society.-- John Adams

Courage and perseverance have a magic talisman, before which difficulties and obstacles vanish into air. John Adams (1767-1848)

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.- John Adams

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman. ~John Adams to his wife, Abigail Adams.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --John Adams

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.--John Adams

The four most miserable years of my life. - John Adams (1735 &endash; 1826) US President (2), on the Presidency

It has confirmed in me, the Belief, of what was formerly suspected, viz., that your Principles were very wicked and depraved, tho your Cunning was exquisite enough, to conceal your Crimes from the Public scrutiny. I am now brought to believe what was formerly only suspected, viz. your subordination of Witnesses, your Perjuries, and your Briberies as well as your Cruelty. John Adams, Dec. 23rd, 1765

The great and Almighty author of nature, who at first established those rules which regulate the world, can as easily suspend those laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles of Jesus Christ.
John Adams; in his Diary Mar. 1, 1756.; Works II, p.8

I am, therefore, of opinion that men ought, (after they have examined with unbiased judgments every system of religion, and chosen one system, on their own authority, for themselves,) to avow their opinions and defend them with boldness.-- John Adams Diary Mar. 7, 1756; 'Works' II, p8

We live, my dear, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not. --John Adams, to Abigail Adams, 1774, quoted in _John Adams_ David McCullough

These bickerings of opposite parties, and their mutual reproaches their declamations, their sing-song, their triumphs and defiances, their dismals and prophecies, are all delusion.-- John Adams to Abigail; Jul 16, 1774

The Science of Government it is my duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts.&emdash;I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematics and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematics and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. --John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, after May 12, 1780.&emdash;Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, vol. 3, p. 342 (1973).

The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition. We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for it preservation. Some political institutions must be prepared to assist this love against its enemies. Without these, the struggle will ever end only in a change of imposters.--John Adams, letter to Samuel Adams, October 18, 1790

We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere; that children and apprentices were disobedient; that schools and colleges were grown turbulent; that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment, but you are so saucy, I won't blot it out. Depend on it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systens. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair and softly, and in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight. --from the letters of John Adams, quoted in _John Adams_, David McCullough

Joey Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing. -Joey Adams (January 6, 1911 – December 2, 1999), born Joseph Abramowitz, American comedian

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.-Joey Adams

The difference between playing the stock market and the horses is that one of the horses must win.-
Joey Adams

If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all.- Joey Adams

A bikini is like a barbed-wire fence. It protects the property without obstructing the view.- Joey Adams

Ordination in Camden Town

This morning I was officiating at the ordination of Tim Dalton, a new teaching elder in our Camden Town church plant. I spent half an hour wandering the streets looking for the pub where the church meets. I had not realised they had changed pubs since my visit a year ago. I think seven elders laid on hands and prayed for Tim. We were not all Presbyterians as his father took part and he is a retired vicar, John Field gave an excellent exposition of John 21. Afterwards we descended from the upper room to the bar below for a very pleasant Thai buffet lunch. I also met up with an old friend from my undergraduate days. We had not met for over 42 years.

Books Read in November 2009

1. The Practical Approach to Muslims by Jens Christensen

There are not many books I have found to be worth reading more than once for books are many and life is short. Here is an exceptional work which I first read when a missionary among Muslims in Nigeria. It is simply the best book I know on understanding Islam and taking the gospel to Muslims.

The author was a Danish Lutheran bishop who spent a lifetime of work on the North West Frontier of Pakistan. He writes as a Lutheran who holds a high view of Scripture but not as a believer in plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture. But I do not see this in any way detracting from the superb value of the book except his view of politics is very Lutheran, two kingdoms. But this is a minor criticism of a book which will give the reader a deeper understanding of the gospel as well as of Islam.

Christensen is in no doubt that Allah of Mohammed is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Islam is submission to the inscrutable and sometimes changing will of Allah, the only sovereign. The gospel is the good news that we know God as Father through his Son by the work of his Spirit. Every word of theology the two faiths use has a different meaning, God, prayer, books, prophets, predestination, tradition. The Muslim sees the way to please Allah is to imitate the way of Mohammed. What he did, the Muslim must do. Christians do not follow Christ by What Did Jesus Do?

The fundamental conflict though is that God became man, He became flesh in Christ. The chapter on the virgin birth is the best I have ever read on the incarnation.

If you want to be a Christian witness to Muslims, this is the one book to study. Even if you have no Muslims near you it will be a benefit too.

Though published in 1977 it is based on lectures in the 1950s with a final 1960 chapter. So it is dated as is all pre-9/11 work on this subject but it remains invaluable.

2. Churchill's Black Dog by Anthony Storr

The author, a psychiatrist, has given a series of papers on creativity and mental health. His chapters on Churchill and Newton as worth the price of the book. If Churchill had not had an emotionally deprived childhood we might be speaking German now. He was a man who had to prove himself. Storr reminds us how close we were to a deal with Hitler in 1940. Churchill was resolute. Interestingly, just how bad things were does not come out in Winston's writings but Jenkin's biography makes it clear. I wonder also if Churchill's appetite never went to sexual excess because of his father's syphilis, something else the great man was quiet about. The chapter on Newton is a revelation. Some chapters are not so gripping but read it for WSC and Newton.

3. The Last Kingdom (Alfred the Great 1) by Bernard Cornwell

The master of historical fiction takes us to 9th century Britian. I have to call it that because we are not yet England. Northumbria falls to the Danes. So do the other kingdoms. Only Wessex holds out under Alfred, pious, clever and not very attractive here. He is learned and starts us for the first time as a naval power. Our hero and narrator is a Northumbrian lad who loses his family and inheritance in the conflict with the Danes. He gets a Danish upbringing, love for combat and a preference for their pagan gods. Christianity is not a faith for warriors. You learn the horror of invading Danes who loved to destroy churches for their treasure. You become conversant with the battle techniques of a shield wall and you learn a lot of the history of the formation of our nation.

4. Discipleship in Islamic Society by Samuel P Sclorff

A helpful booklet by a missionary to North Africa. It is a handbook for Muslim background believers but also a good introduction to Islam for the Christian. Differences in the faiths are well described but I believe the biggest difference, the doctrine of grace is not made clear. Also missing is the action of God in baptism. Baptism is not primarily the believer's witness to his faith. It is first and foremost God's witness to the salvation given in union with Christ.
The booklet teaches that MMBs should be in local churches and is a primer on church government.

5. Islam in Britain by M.A.Zaki Badawi

In this 1981 lecture introducing the subject to a British audience the late author estimates the British Muslim population at 1 to 1.5 million. Things have moved on but this remains a valuable short introduction as to the origins of Islam in this country. In his latter years, when principal of the Muslim College in Ealing, Badawi was often in the media as a spokesman for his religion and no-one seems to have replaced him. He explains the autonomy of each mosque and and the need for an officially representative body. So far the various groupings remain diverse and not practically united. He states that Muslim theology has not developed a view on how to live as a minority. The need remains though now Islam in the UK has a much higher profile. In 1981 the author could only look forward to Muslim members of both houses of parliament. I would dispute his claim that Islam is a universal religion. It is a very Arabian expression of faith which has spread world wide.

6. Christianity and Islam under colonialism in northern Nigeria
by Jan Harm Boer

This booklet was written in response to a Nigerian newspaper article in 1974 which the writer equated British colonialism in northern Nigeria with christianisation. Boer did his doctorate on the relation between colonialism and a Christian mission in this country and this booklet draws on that more detailed study. British missionaries were supporters of the colonial enterprise. They were children of their age. They especially welcomed it for putting an end to the slavery which is horrifically described here. But the British government chose to rule through the Muslim emirs and not to disturb their political hegemony by allowing the missionaries to evangelise. Missions were restricted to the area of followers of traditional African religion. The missionaries believed such restrictions unwarranted, a denial of religious liberty. They also objected to being told that for their own health they could not live within 440 yards of the locals. It was erroneously thought that mosquitoes could not fly that far.There was co-operation in some work. notably education but the missionaries were concerned that government grants meant government control and secularised education. The general conclusion of this book is that the colonial regime was more helpful to the spread of Islam rather than being in cahoots with Christian missionaries, some of whom took very courageous stands against the powers that be and on one occasion maintained discreet silence so as not to embarrass Britain in WWI. A most excellent small corrective to the myth of colonialism being the friend of Christian mission. Remember, the British kept Carey out of their India.

7. The love of God in the Qur'an and the Bible (Christianity and Islam) by John Gilchrist

The author shows from the Bible that God is love and through Jesus Christ we can be in son to father relationship with Him. There is no such possibility from the Quranic revelation.

8. The integrity of the Bible according to the Qur®an and the Hadith by Ghiyathuddin Adelphi

This booklet published in India makes extensive use of Quranic and Hadith texts to show the common Muslim slander that Jews and Christians have corrupted their Scriptures is unfounded. The case is argued well. A charge of false interpretation may be made against People of the Book, but not one of altering the text. Perhaps because this comes from India the reader is not told to simply go to the British Museum and view New testament codices from centuries before Mohammed. Their text is the same as today's Bible.

9. God has chosen me for everlasting life by Hamran Ambrie

Testimonies of Muslims who come to faith in Christ are usually interesting and this on from an Indonesian Muslim leader is no exception. Preparing to preach against the gospel he received inner conviction that Scripture has not been corrupted and is true. He recounts his struggles with the doctrines Muslims reject and how he came to see this is wrong. Unbeknown to him, other family members were also coming to faith. His whole family was baptised and he took a courageous stand for the truth in the face of Muslim friends who did not believe such a prominent man could become apostate from Islam.

10. The crucifixion of Christ: A fact, not fiction (Qur'an and Bible Series) by John Gilchrist

My copy is called The Crucifixion in the Quran and the Bible, 1981. The author is from South Africa and often, as hear, writes to answer the Muslim evangelist, the late Ahmad Diddat. Muslim theories that Jesus was nor crucified, but a substitute are countered as well as the ridiculous idea that Jesus did not die, merely passed out on the cross. Refuting error, the author preaches the true gospel that Jesus died for the sins of his people and was raised for their salvation.

11. The textual history of the Qur'an and the Bible (Qur'an and Bible series) by John Gilchrist

The author writes in response to the late Ahmed Deedat's, 'Is the Bible God's Word?'. The Christian church has preserved many very old manuscripts of the Bible predating Mohammed. The Muslims have selected only on Quranic text and destroyed others The Bible does not exist in various versions but different translations. Alleged errors and contradictions are refuted.

12. A Comparative Study of the Quran and the Bible by John Gilchrist

The message parallels the above book but also shows how Christians will stick with their earliest manuscripts though this may remove some previously cherished texts like the ending of Mark's Gospel. The Quran shows evidence of borrowing from Jewish non-biblical writings but also testifies that the Bible should be read. Nowhere does it say it has been altered.

13. Origins and sources of the Gospel of Barnabas by John Gilchrist

This spurious gospel is used by Muslims against the true Scripture. It claims to be apostolic but all the evidence points to a medieval origin in Spain or perhaps Italy. It quotes from Dante.

14.Is Muhammad foretold in the Bible?: A response to What the Bible says about Muhummed (Qur'an and Bible Series) by John Gilchrist

Jesus not Mohammed is the true fulfilment of the Deuteronomic promise of another prophet like Moses. Gilchrist again ably refutes Muslim claims for Mohammed. Neither is the Muslim's prophet the Comforter Jesus promised in John's Gospel. Only the Holy Spirit is in place of Christ in the world today.


15. The titles of Jesus in the Qur'an and the Bible (Christianity and Islam) by John Gilchrist

In the Quran Jesus is the Messiah. Word of God and a Spirit from God. These titles are greater than those of Mohammed. In the Bible he is Son of Man and Son of God to show perfect humanity and deity in the one person. Son of God does not imply sexual origin but likeness to the Father.

16. The Christian view of the Eid sacrifice (Christianity and Islam) by John Gilchrist

Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his only son. This was Isaac, son of the promise, not Ishmael, son of the slave. God then provided the lamb, a foretelling of his sending his Son, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The significance of the Eid sacrifice is not man giving something to God, but God providing the sacrifice to take away sin.

17. The temple, the Ka'aba, and the Christ (Christianity and Islam) by John Gilchrist

The temple of Jerusalem is put in historic context as is Jesus' attitude to it. The Kaaba is claimed to be the place where Abraham worshipped. it is shown to be an Arab idol shrine. At first Mohammed faced Jerusalem in prayer. Only after Jewish opposition in Medina did the prophet face Mecca. Finally Christ is shown to be the one to be worshipped in spirit and truth.

18. Our approach to Islam - Charity or Militancy by John Gilchrist

This 1990 booklet was written in response to the development of militant Islam, a phenomenon which sadly is now daily in our news. Islam is inherently militant. The concept of jihad being only personal and spiritual is linked to a publication as recent as 1948 for its origins. The Christian way should be one of tolerance and respect. Gilchrist considers whether Allah is the creator God and says he is the one true God, but without a Trinitarian understanding through Christ he is not really known. He denies that the Muslim's God is an idol or a demon and is critical of Christians who teach this and who refuse halal food. His message is that the Christian response is love not militancy.

19. The Cross in the Gospel and the Quran by Iskandar Jadeed

Muslims deny that God would let a prophet be put to death. God made someone take the likeness of Jesus and be put to death. The author shows proof from the Bible that the Quranic understanding is wrong for it was the will of God that his Son should suffer and die for our sins.

20. God and Christ by Iskandar Jadeed

Answers to Muslims' questions, about God, Trinity and Christ. The true gospel is given in answer. I do not though consider that science teaches any purpose to the universe. That is not what science is about.

21. Evidences for the collection of the Qur'an by John Gilchrist

This is a small beginning to Quranic textual criticism. It tells how the book was compiled, how Uthman standardised the text by burning variants and the different codex of Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud. The missing stoning verses are discussed and other variant readings.

22. The Gospel of Barnabas: " a false testimony " by Iskandar Jadeed

The Gospel of Barnabas did nit exist before the 15th century, The author as an apostate Christian turned Muslim. It contradicts the gospels, It also contradicts the Quran.

23. Blood on the Holy Land: Report on the Visit by a Delegation of British Muslims to Occupied Palestine, 24th Rajab-2nd Sha'ban 1408/13th-20th March 1988 by Ibrahim Hewitt

The author is an English convert to Islam. He recounts a visit of British Muslims to Palestine and Israel in 1988. We are now in a different situation but the message here is one of Israeli oppression. Nothing is said about the plight of Christian Arabs. Islam is seen as the hope for peace. It is said to be the most tolerant religion.

24. A chronology of Christian outreach to the Arab world 37AD to 1941 by David Morriss

A fascinating account of the growth and history of the church among the Arabs. It shows the decline brought about by Islam and the history of missions, particularly to North Africa until 1980. Very informative.

25. The new vitality of Islam in Black Africa and its pastoral implications by Victor Mertens

This is a 1980 study by a Roman Catholic based in Zaire whch examines the reasons for the growth of Islam in black Africa and the response his church should make. It is a good and insightful analysis for the reasons Islam has grown. Passing years have not significanly affected these reasons. He calls for Christians to continue Afican tolerance and for the whole church, not only clergy, to be evangelistic in word and deed. This Protestant wholly concurs.

26 Muslims and Christians at the Table: Promoting Biblical Understanding among North American Muslims by Bruce A McDowell and Anees Zaka

Probably the best book to read for any Christian wanting to witness to Muslims. It suffers a little from its American context but any Brit can contextualise. Good analysis of Muslims and their cultures in the West. The comparative theologies are taught and very practical ways of witness. Of particular interest is the concept of Meetings for Mutual Understanding as these are corporate witness and promote social cohesion as well as friendship evangelism.

Jay Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

If I had to choose between putting a saloon or a liberal church on a corner, I'd choose the saloon every time. People who drink up the pay check in the saloon are less likely to become Pharisees, thinking that they don't need the Great Physician, than those who weekly swill the soporific doctrine of man's goodness. - Jay Adams (b. January 30, 1929) i American Reformed Christian author of Competent to Counsel,

Books read in the year to July 2009

Reading in the past year to July has been slow to collate. 61 this year. I am slipping from 83 , 127 and 97 the years before. Perhaps I have been more on the web this tear with my new Macbook and then Facebook. Here is the analysis, position and books read with previous years below

1 Theology 13.
2= Biography 12
History 12
4 Fiction 5
3 Travel 4
4= Economics, Islam .language, humour
10= Trivia, commentaries, computing, psychology, politics, mission, ethics



1. History 18 (14 4th, 32 1st)
2. Biography 12 (16 3rd, 20 2nd)
3= Novels 11 (34 1st, 3 7th= )
3= Theology 11 ( 8 5th= 7 4th)
5. Commentaries 8 1 (1 12= 0 14th=)
6. Islam 6 (8 5= 9 3rd)
7= Devotional 3 (3 8= 3 7th)
7= Travel 3 (1 12th 0)
9. Trivia 2 ( 3 8th= 2 10th=)
10= Psychology 1 (2 19= 2 10th=)
10= Politics 1 (6 7th 4 6th)
10= Humour 1 (1 12th 5 5th)
10= Mission 1 (0 9th 2 10th= )
10= Ethics 1
15= Letters 0 (1 12= 1 14th=)
Sport 0 (1 2= 1 14th=))
Quotations 0 (2 10th= 2 10=)
Diaries 0 (1 12= 0)
Prayers 0 (1 12= 0)
Children's 0 (24 2nd 3 7th=)

I

James Luther Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

Nothing is more dangerous than a Calvinist just off his knees.. - James Luther Adams (November 12, 1901-July 26, 1994) was a Unitarian parish minister, quoted by Max Stackhouse, in his preface to, Religion, Pluralism and Public Life, ed Luis E Lugo, Eeerdmans, 200O.

A decade of Sharia law in north Nigeria breeds frustration

Aminu Abubakar (AFP) writes,
KANO, Nigeria — A decade after Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north re-introduced strict Islamic Sharia law, the fervour has fizzled while disillusionment is becoming more strident about its patchy application.

Out of Nigeria's 36 states, 12 re-adopted a strict version of Sharia in 1999 nearly a century after it had been abandoned.

But even one of the radical Muslim clerics who in 1999 actively lobbied for Sharia in Kano State, Abba Koki, conceded there were problems.

"People are disillusioned with the insincerity, deception and hypocrisy which characterise the implementation of Sharia," Koki told AFP.

Zamfara State, which pioneered the return to the penal code, last week marked the 10th anniversary with a low-key ceremony attended by the clergy and politicians.

Since the introduction of Sharia coincided with the return of democracy to Nigeria after 15 years of military dictatorship, critics accuse politicians of hijacking the return to Islamic law to advance their own political mileage.

Sceptics say there is little to show that Sharia law has had a positive impact in a region still battling graft, moral decay and searing poverty.

"People?s aspirations for a just and decent society were dashed by self-seeking politicians who hide under the Sharia to promote their personal political interests," charged Koki.

Five years into the law, Koki quit a Kano State government Sharia board in protest at what he called its failure to deliver.

"The clamour for Sharia was motivated by the people?s ardent desire to do away with injustices, corruption, impunity, immorality and other social ills bedeviling our society.

"Instead politicians have used this to seek votes and maintain the status quo after winning elections," Koki said.

Sulayman Nyang, a lecturer in African studies and Islamic affairs at Howard University in Washington D.C. said Sharia was seen in northern Nigeria as a "pacifier in this world of chaos and uncertainties".

"Caught in the crossfires of moral decay and grinding poverty, and very much handicapped by poor leadership and corrupt politicians, many a Muslim who believes in traditional Islam now sees the resurrection of the Sharia as a way out of their disturbing humiliation and low self-esteem," Nyang told AFP.

Nigeria?s return to democracy, also in 1999, saw the emergence of a new political class which included former Zamfara State governor Ahmed Sani Yerima, now a senator, whose campaign promise was strict Sharia.

He won election and made good his pledge by declaring Islamic law in the state at an elaborate event. Eleven other states followed in swift succession.

Yet Abubakar Sadiq, political scientist at Nigeria's Ahmadu Bello University, said none of the rulers at the time genuinely embraced Sharia.

"The northern political elite had come to the end of its political wits" and saw Sharia as "a new cheap and effective" tool for electioneering, said Sadiq.

Voters like Muhammad Nasir, an electronics dealer at Kano city's downtown Sabon Gari market, agree.

"Nothing has changed in the last 10 years, there is nothing like Sharia in all the so-called Sharia states. Politicians are still corrupt, immorality is everywhere ... there are brothels and beer parlours everywhere," Nasir said.

But Kano State governor?s spokesman Sule Yau Sule countered critics as narrow-minded.

"Some people think Sharia is all about stoning to death and amputation, which is a narrow perception. Sharia is about human development, making a person a better being in all spheres and I believe this is what we are doing," Sule said.

In the first two years, several death sentences were passed, none of which were executed.

Four women condemned to death by stoning for adultery had the sentences overturned on appeals.

Sadiq said Sharia judges were initially "overzealous" thinking that the rulers were "sincere and began dishing out capital punishments", but later soft-pedalled.

Out of more than two dozen amputation sentences passed for theft in four states, only two were executed. One of them was on a peasant, Buba Bello Jangebe, for stealing a cow in 2000.

A prominent rights group in Nigeria, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), wants the federal government to sponsor Jandebe for surgery to replace his limb.

"This we believe is the best gift to celebrate our 10 years of civil rule and the anniversary of the 'launching' of the Sharia," said CRC.

Sharia was first introduced in northern Nigeria by Arab traders around the ninth century. In 1904 the British colonial administration allowed it to be practiced but outlawed the punitive aspects of stoning to death, amputation and flogging.

Nyang also warned of dangers of "misappropriations" of Sharia by Muslim extremists in Nigeria, the most populous black nation seen as pivotal to the region's stability.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

We left in 1982 when democracy had already been restored but before the reversion to this inequitable code. So 'the introduction of Sharia coincided with the return of democracy to Nigeria ' is not accurate.

Mohammed drawings fund satirical website

Copenhagen Post reports,Tuesday, 03 November 2009
'Illustrators target climate change debate on a new website funded by the sale of the Mohammed drawings

A satirical climate website operated by the Danish Illustrators Association will be launched tomorrow.

The site, caricature.dk, is funded by money raised through the sale and use of Jyllands-Posten newspaper’s infamous Mohammed cartoons and will feature satirical drawings with climate themes every day until the end of the COP15 climate conference in December. It will also include regular comments on the climate change debate.

Since their publication in 2005, the Mohammed drawings have been reprinted throughout the world. But although the new website will benefit from the cartoons’ income, it will have nothing to do with Mohammed or Islam.

‘This initiative was created to emphasise the tradition of satirical cartoons in Danish newspapers and other media,’ the association’s chairman Claus Seidel said.

‘Caricature.dk will demonstrate that freedom of expression goes far beyond all the focus put on the Mohammed cartoons.’

Siedel said the association had attempted to recover all the fees normally payable when reprinting a copyrighted work, yet most media had so far neglected to pay. But it was agreed at the start that whatever money was collected would be pooled, he added.

‘Instead of giving 10-15,000 kroner to each of the 12 cartoonists, we decided from the beginning to put the money into a fund that could carry Danish illustration into the future,’ he said.

After the conclusion of the COP15 conference, the website will continue to operate, addressing issues other than climate.'

Something good from the cartoons the dhimmis would not publish in UK or USA.

Slavery still persists in Mauritania

afrol News, 4 November - Despite strong efforts by the toppled democratic government of Mauritania, slavery has yet to be rooted out in the country, a UN report documents. Under the new government, little progress is made to fight slavery.

Gulnara Shahinian, the first UN "Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery" appointed only last year, today reports her findings after a longer research visit to Mauritania. While diplomatically praising the Mauritanian government for "progress", she is quite clear on demanding stronger action to finally root out slavery in the country.

"A more a holistic, collaborative and sustained approach addressing all forms of discrimination together with poverty at all levels of society is required," Ms Shahinian says, warning that slavery is partly "unaddressed" in Mauritania. This "may be an obstacle to the stability, sustainable development and prosperity of Mauritania," said the UN expert.

Slavery in modern times has been documented in Mauritania by many local and foreign human rights groups and the UN for decades. Most Mauritanian governments, stemming from the military elite, have headed policies of denial regarding slavery, often criminalising organisations fighting slavery or speaking about it to foreign media.

Only the recent military reform government under Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall (2005-07) and the democratic government under President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi (2007-08) seriously addressed slavery in the country. In August 2007, an anti-slavery bill was approved and serious efforts were made to assist remaining slaves to obtain freedom.

Since the 2008 coup, however, civil society has again been limited in its freedom and the military government has shown little interest in fighting slavery and helping slaves to be freed.

The UN's Ms Shahinian confirms that slavery continues to be a problem. "In my visits to communities I met with people who told me that they had been victims of slavery practices such as serfdom and domestic servitude. These people had fled slavery and also told the stories of those they had left behind," she reports from her Mauritania visit.

"These victims said that they were utterly deprived of their basic human rights. Having no alternative, they voluntarily stay or after fleeing, return back to slavery. This perpetuates the vicious circle of slavery for men, women and children. The women I met felt that they were the most vulnerable as they suffer triple discrimination firstly as women, secondly, as mothers and thirdly as slaves," Ms Shahinian reports.

The UN Special Rapporteur urged Mauritanian authorities to do more to address slavery. While the 2007 anti-slavery law was still in place, little is done to implement it, she noted between the lines.

"In order for victims to be encouraged to come forward, I recommend that the 2007 slavery law include provisions that provide for victim assistance and socio-economic programmes for their reintegration into society," stressed Ms Shahinian. Enslaved Mauritanians still have little incentives to come forward, even risking being sent back to their masters by local police.

Ms Shahinian also urged the military government to bring back civil society into the process to fight slavery, as done by the toppled government. "The national strategy to combat slavery should be developed by different stakeholders from the government, local and international NGOs, political parties, religious leaders, trade unions, UN agencies and the donor community," she urged.

Finally, Ms Shahinian found the 2007 law too vague in its definition of slavery, as many master-servant dependencies - often encompassing former slavery bonds - fell short of inclusion in the anti-slavery policy.

"In order for the judiciary to effectively use this law, I would strongly recommend that the law be amended to contain a clearer definition of slavery and socio-economic programmes which would act as an incentive for victims to bring cases before the law," Ms Shahinian advised.


By staff writer

© afrol News

Fifth Day of NOVEMBER

A form of PRAYER with THANKSGIVING
To be used yearly upon the Fifth Day of NOVEMBER

For the happy Deliverance of King JAMES I and the Three Estates of England, from the most traiterous and bloody-intended Massacre by GUNPOWDER: And also for the happy Arrival of His Majesty King William on this Day, for the Deliverance of our Church and Nation.

The Minister of every Parish shall give warning to his Parishioners publickly in the Church at Morning Prayer, the Sunday before, for the due observation of the said Day. And after Morning Prayer, or Preaching, upon the said Fifth Day of November, shall read publickly, distinctly, and plainly, the Act of Parliament, made in the third Year of King James the First, for the Observation of it.
The Service shall be the same with the usual Office for Holy Days in all things; except where it is hereafter otherwise appointed.
If this Day shall happen to be a Sunday, only the Collect proper for that Sunday shall be added to this Office in its place.
Morning Prayer shall begin with these Sentences.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering, and of great goodness.

Psal. ciii.8
He will not alway be chiding: neither keepeth he his anger for ever.
Ver. 9
He hath not dealt with us after our sins: nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
Ver. 10
Instead of Venite, exultemus, shall this Hymn following be used, one verse by the Priest, and another by the Clerk and People.
O Give thanks unto the Lord for he is gracious: and his mercy endureth for ever.

Psal. cvii. 1
Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed: and delivered from the hand of the enemy.

Ver. 2
Many a time have they fought against me from my youth up: may Israel now say.

Ps. cxxix. 1
Yea, many a time have they vexed me from my youth up: but they have not prevailed against me.

Ver. 2
They have privily laid their net to destroy me without a cause: yea, even without a cause, have they made a pit for my soul.

Psal. xxxv. 7
They have laid a net for my feet, and pressed down my soul: they have digged a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst of it themselves.

Psal. lvii. 7
Great is our Lord, and great is His power: yea, and His wisdom is infinite.

Psal. cxlvii. 5
The Lord setteth up the meek: and bringeth the ungodly down to the ground.

Ver. 6
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou madest so strong for thine own self.

Psal. lxxx. 17
And so will not we go back from thee: O let us live, and we shall call upon thy Name.

Ver. 18
Glory be to the Father, &c.

Proper Psalms: lxiv, cxxiv, cxxv

Proper Lessons:

First: 2 Sam. xxii

Te Deum

Second: Acts xxiii

Jubilate

In the Suffrages after the Creed, these shall be inserted, and used for the Queen.

Priest: O Lord, save the Queen
People: Who putteth her trust in thee
Priest: Send her help from thy holy place
People: And evermore mightily defend her
Priest: Let her enemies have no advantage against her
People: Let not the wicked approach to hurt her

Instead of the 1st Collect for Morning Prayer, shall these two be used.

Almighty God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of thy Church, and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States, professing they holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof; We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance of our gracious Sovereign King JAMES the First, the Queen, the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility, Clergy and Commons of ENGLAND, then assembled in Parliament, by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages. From this unnatural conspiracy, not our merit, but thy mercy; not our foresight, but thy providence, delivered us: And therefore not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto they Name be ascribed all honour and glory, in all Churches of the Saints, from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Accept also, most gracious God, of our unfeigned thanks, for filling our hearts again with joy and gladness, after the time that thou hast afflicted us, and putting a new song into our mouths, by bringing his Majesty King WILLIAM upon this Day, for the Deliverance of our Church and Nation from Popish Tyranny and arbitrary Power. We adore the wisdom and justice of thy providence, which so timely interposed in our extreme danger, and disappointed all the designs of our enemies. We beseech thee, give us such a lively and lasting sense of what thou didst then, and hast since that time done for us, that we may not grown secure and careless in our obedience, by presuming upon thy great and undeserved goodness; but that it may lead us to repentance, and move us to be the more diligent and zealous in all the duties of our Religion, which thou hast in a marvellous manner preserved to us. Let truth and justice, brotherly kindness and charity, devotion and piety, concord and unity, with all other virtues, so flourish among us, that they may be the stability of our times, and make this Church a praise in the earth. All which we humbly beg for the sake of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.

In the end of the Litany, shall this be said which followeth.

Almighty God and heavenly Father, who of thy gracious providence, and tender mercy towards us, didst prevent the malice and imaginations of our enemies, by discovering and confounding their horrible and wicked enterprize, plotted and intended this day to have been executed against the King, and whole State of ENGLAND, for the subversion of the Government and Religion established among us; and didst likwise upon this day wonderfully conduct thy servant King WILLIAM and bring him safely into ENGLAND, to preserve us from the attempts of our enemies to bereave us of our Religion and Laws; We most humbly praise and magnify thy most glorious Name for thy unspeakable goodness towards us, expressed in both these acts of thy mercy. We confess it has been of thy mercy alone that we are not consumed; for our sins have cried to heaven against us, and our iniquities justly called for vengeance upon us. But thou hast not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us after our iniquities; nor given us over, as we deserved, to be a prey to our enemies; but hast in mercy delivered us from their malice, and preserved us from death and destruction. Let the consideration of this thy repeated goodness, O Lord, work in us true repentance, that iniquity may not be our ruin: And increase in us more and more a lively faith and love, fruitful in all holy obedience, that thou mayest still continue thy favour, with the light of thy Gospel, to us and our posterity for ever more; and that for thy dear Son's sake Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

Instead of the Prayer [In time of War and Tumults] shall be used this Prayer following.

O Lord, who didst this day discover the snares of death that were laid for us, and didst wonderfully deliver us from the same; Be thou still our mightly Protector, and scatter our enemies that delight in blood: Infatuate and defeat their counsels, abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices. Strengthen the hands of our gracious Sovereign Queen VICTORIA, and all that are put in authority under her, with judgment and justice, to cut off all such workers of iniquity, as turn Religion into Rebellion, and Faith into Faction; that they may never prevail against us, or triumph in the ruin of thy church among us: but that our gracious Sovereign and her Realms, being preserved in thy true Religion, and by thy merciful goodness protected in the same, we may all duly serve thee, and give thee thanks in thy holy Congregation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In the Communion Service, instead of the Collect for the Day shall this which followeth be used.

Eternal God, and our most mightly Protector, we thy unworthy servants do humbly present ourselves before thy Majesty, acknowledging thy power, wisdom and goodness, in preserving the King, and of the Three Estates of the Realm of England assembled in Parliament, from the destruction this day intended against them. Make us, we beseech thee, truly thankful for this, and for all other thy great mercies towards us; particularly for thy making this day against memorable, by a fresh instance of thy loving-kindness towards us. We bless thee for giving his late Majesty King WILLIAM a safe arrival here, and for making all opposition fall before him, till he became our King and Governor. We beseech thee to protect and defend our Sovereign Queen VICTORIA, and all the Royal Family, from all Treasons and Conspiracies: Preserve her in all thy faith, fear and love; prosper her reign with long happiness here on earth; and crown her with everlasting glory hereafter, through Jesus Christ our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.

The Epistle: Rom. xiii. 1

The Gospel: St. Luke ix. 51

After the Creed, if there be no Sermon, shall be read one of the six homilies against Rebelliion.

This Sentence is to be read at the Offertory.

Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

St. Matth. vii. 12
After the Prayer for the Church militant this following Prayer is to be used. O God, whose Name is excellent in all the earth, and thy glory above the heavens; who, on this day, didst miraculously preserve our Church and State from the secret contrivance and hellish malice of Popish Conspirators; and on this day also didst begin to give us a mightly Deliverance from the open tyranny and oppression of the same cruel and blood-thirsty enemies; We bless and adore thy glorious Majesty, as for the former, so for this thy later marvellous loving-kindness to our church and Nation, in the preservation of our Religion and Liberties. And we humbly pray that the devout sense of this thy repeated mercy may renew and increase in us a spirit of love and thankfulness to thee its only Author; a spirit of peaceable submission and obedience to our gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen VICTORIA; and a spirit of fervent zeal for our holy Religion, which thou hast so wonderfully rescued, and established a Blessing to us and our posterity. And this we beg for Jesus Christ his sake. Amen.

Victoria R.

Our Will and Pleasure is, That these Four Forms of Prayer and Service, made for the Fifth of November, the Thirtieth of January, the Twenty-ninth of May, and the Twentieth of June, be forthwith printed and published, and annexed to the Book of Common Prayer and Liturgy of the United Church of England and Ireland, to be used yearly on the said Days, in all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Chapels; in all Chapels of Colleges and Halls within Our Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, and of Our Colleges of Eton and Winchester, and in all Parish-Churches and Chapels within those parts of Our United Kingdom called England and Ireland.

Given at Our Court at Kensington the Twenty-first Day of June, 1837, in the First year of Our Reign.

By Her Majesty's Command,

J. RUSSELL.

extracts from the Book of Common Prayer according to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland, Oxford, at the University Press, 1844.

A Penny For the Guy!

I heard this morning that fewer children are doing this. I doubt if it is fear of the hate laws encompassing RCs or Yorkshiremen. It could now me 'A quid for the scarecrow' what with inflation and the poverty of history taught in schools. But whose effigy would you like to burn? I offer Edward Heath for getting us into the EU, Patrick McGee for being an Irish brother to Fawkes, Osama BL, and Peter Mandelson, architect of Nulabour. Others?

Henry Brooks Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.-Henry Brooks Adams "The Education of Henry Adams"

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence. Henry Brooks Adams (1838 -; 1918) American writer

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Henry Brooks Adams "The Education of Henry Adams"

Henry Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

More than any other county in England, Yorkshire retained a sort of social independence of London. Scotland itself was hardly more distinct... To a certain degree, evident enough to Yorkshiremen, Yorkshire was not English--or was all England, as they might choose to express it. --Henry Adams, 1906

Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960) - christiansquoting.org.uk

Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. --Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and radio personality

DOUGLAS ADAMS,(1952- 2004 - christiansquoting.org.uk

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about. --Douglas Adams

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.ADAMS, DOUGLAS (1952-2001) {Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.- DOUGLAS ADAMS,(1952- 2004) {Mostly Harmless}

What's so unpleasant about being drunk? You ask a glass of water.--Douglas Adams THHGttG

Home Again

We left Bad Homburg and arrived home 11 hors later. Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, the Channel Tunnel and England. Our ride was to Epsom where we transferred to our own car. The whole trip was blessed with good weather. Today we drove over 600 miles. Pictures of the Chunnel if you click on the title. In the evening we were not answering the doorbell to Halloween participants. The pound is so nearly parity with the euro so little seems cheaper in the EUSSR.

Charles Kendall Adams - christiansquoting.org.uk

No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required, that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction= Charles Kendall Adams

Get dealt a set of cards in life, and just deal with them........no problem.-Charles Kendall Adams (January 24, 1835 – July 26, 1902) American educator and historian

Friday to Bad Homburg

Bas =baths. Spa town. 'In 1888, Bad Homburg became known throughout the German Empire because Kaiser Wilhelm II declared Bad Homburg's Schloss an Imperial summer residence, and later financed the building of the Church of the Redeemer (Erlöserkirche) close by. His mother, too, Victoria, the old emperor's widow — and Queen Victoria's eldest daughter — lived there for several years. King Edward VII was also often a guest. It was he who introduced the Homburg hat and permanent turn-up trousers. He also underwent fasting cures at Homburg 32 times.' I will not be fasting. This was a 400 mile drive in 7 hours. I expected Austrian mountains bur we passed none. From motorway shops Germany looks expensive. This town is where the frankfurst bankers live and we are out to dinner with one of them

Later: Marion is a banker with European Development bank working in Luxembourg and her husband works for the company with the computer which co-ordinates airline tickets world wide. Both are from the former East Germany so illustrate the blessings of the collapse of the evil empire. Our Belgrade host has worked with the wife and was bringing her a painting she bought in Mostar. After we took it to the flat we were treated to an excellent Italian restaurant dinner with good conversation and cross-cultural learning.

Thursday to Austria

Travelled to Maltz, Austria, 590 miles from Belgrade via Budapest and Vienna in under 9 hours. Chipped in 77 Euros for a tank of diesel. Serbia was the flat Hungarian plain. Farming root crops but no villages. Round Budapest the road was busier and the scenery more varied. We were examined entering Hungary but into Austria nothing. So for once I am pleased with the EUSSR and glad the evil empire has gone with its Iron Curtain. After dinner we walked in what seems a quaint old town dominated by the most impressive monastery above it. EU prices are way above Serbia. Photos, click on title.

Wednesday -again Belgrade.

We walked to a Christian charity helping poor Serbians and bought some souveniers and cards they sold. Having thus done some Christmas shopping we took a taxi to the Bohemian quarter and I photographed before we had a coffee/beer break. We walked to and round the excellent ethnographic museum which allowed photographs. Click on the title to see them. Lunch at a good value Serbian restaurant included a 500g mixed grill for under 9ukp, my best ever value. A walk then a taxi back to the flat. En route I stocked up on liquid refreshments for England. Spirits from under 6ukp/L is a bargain. Local wine is about a quarter of our prices too. Back at the flat we packed for the morning, 9am start and an estimated 7+ hours to a hotel in Austria. We will be driven in our hosts Volvo Chelsea tractor; luxury motoring from Serbia through Hungary. I did not need much dinner tonight.

The European Green Belt

Staying in the same flat as us in Belgrade is an Englishman financed by the UN to develop a green corridor where the Iron Curtain used to be. Sounds a good idea as long as I am not financing it through my taxes. I am only green in recycling and energy saving, and the latter is for economic reasons not environmental ones. I am a global warming sceptic who stamps his foot at the sound of carbon footprints and green taxes or people wanting me to have guilt feelings over flying now that at last I can afford it. I think secularism, Islam and the EUSSR are the big threats, not global warming.

Tuesday to Belgrade

We were up before 5am to get the train to Belgrade. It took five hours, not the scheduled four, on a misty day. But the sun came out in the afternoon and we went to Zemun to walk by the Danube. This town marked the border of Christian civilisation for five centuries. It was Hapsburg; Belgrade, Ottoman, Click title for photos.

Monday in Timisoara

I spent the morning with our Romanian pastors while Katy felt abandoned for the wives were all busy and our host ill in bed. After lunch a young friend, Patriscu, took us into town. We had a brief but interesting tour of the Museum of the Revolution. Iw is coming up to the 20th anniversary of the overthrow of the evil communist regime. I wanted to photograph the plaque on the wall of the fleat of Bishop Toces, the Reformed pastor whose refusal to leave started the whole revolution. But building renovation meant the was no memorial to see. After some shopping it was dinner with our friends and packing for the 5.50 am train on Tuesday. Click title for photos.

Sunday in Timisoara

We took a cab to church as our hostess has food to carry for pot luck lunch. The church was better decorated than I remember from my precious visit and the landlord still had grapes on his vines. Liviu led the service. Christi led the music on his guitar and the singing was good. They also have a good choir. I preached on church as body, building and brethren. Daniel translated. Seven women and two men were received as first members in addition to the three elders. I told them something of presbyterian government and what to do if there was a problem with their elders. After we talked with two elders and wives about problematic church / mission relations and sought a way forward. We enjoyed a good dinner with Christi and Melissa at a local restaurant. Romanian food, beer and tuica = grappa, but I was the only paraker of the alcohol.

Saturday in Timisoara

We spent the morning and lunch with Liviu and Sica, his wife. We walked into town after discussing church affairs. I saw again the bullet holes in the walls of MacDonalds. No it was not a protest at one of America's least worthy contributions to globalisation. The holes were from the revolution which started here 20 years ago this December.

The weather was warm enough for us to dine out on the roof terrace of a top Romanian cuisine restaurant. Like Serbia, lagrge portions. Tripe soup followed by the best liver and bacon I have ever eaten. We rested after that. I did some sermon preparation for tomorrow and we had a pizza out with our host. Trabsylvanian dark beer is good.

Friday to Timisoara

After breakfast I walked around to find where I could get a haicut. After a long walk I found one near the apartment, one unknown to our hosts. 4.40 ukp was a bargain so I gave a tip too. Katy bought honey from the market.After lunch we took a taxi to the station. Unfortunately I left by 1L gottle of geer in the cab :-( The train was of ancient vintage. One compartment in three was lit properly but we had lots of space as few were travelling on this Bucharest train. The four hous went up by 15 minutes but our two Romanian brothers were there to meet us and take us to Nena's flat. She is a Philippino American Presbyterin misionary about to leave after six years here.

Thursday in Belgrade

This morning the ladies were at a Bible study and I walked to the station to buy our train tickets for Timisoara, a bargain at about 18ukp each return. I then spent to morning walking by the River Sava past its confluence with the Danube and back into the city for lunch with our host and a Greek railway engineer colleague of his. Then Angela and Katy took me to The Fortress overlooking the rivers. Click title for photos. At night we took our hosts to dinner at a Serbian restaurant. All I can say is that this place would be wasted on vegetarians.

Wednesday - Belgrade.

Leaving Verona after breakfast, Joel took us to Bergamo Airport near Milan from where we flew to Rome. Half of our two hour stop over was spent traipsing fom our arrival terminal to our departure one. It felt like we were walking half way to Serbia. Our flight to Belgrade arrived early but our taxi awaited and took us to the Field's apartment six floor up with magnificent views of the city including the nearby Ortodox cathedral and a football stadium. We has a stroll out to the cathedral which is still under consrtruction inside. I dislike icons but at least they are preferable to RC mariolatry. Click title for photos.

Tuesday in Verona

In the morning, Joel our host drove us to a beautiful small town, Lazice, on the shore of Lake Garda, Italy's largest lake. The town has castllated walls.Unfortunately the sun was behind clouds so we did not really see the mountains. But we had never before seen so many ducks on a lake. We had a coffee but chose cappuccino not the local shot. The Italians drink it strong and black but very small volume. It is merely a caffeine shot, not a thirst quencher. Joel treated me to a different shot too, local grappa. We lunched back at the family's flat with a bottle of local Bordelino I purchased to wash down the lunch.

Afternoon was spent seeing something of Verona and learning the history from Joel. a very able guide. We saw city walls and Roman gates and roads. We went into the arena, the third largest Roman arena remaining and the best preserved. The stage and seats were being removed as the opera season is over this year. No-one knows how many Christians were lion food there. We saw the Capulet's house with Juliet's balcony. The lion of Venice, symbol of their rule was much in evidence though Napoleon defaced many such signs of any rule that was not his own.Click on title for photos.

Monday in Mantua

Joel, our host drove us to Mantua after his children had gone to school. Parking across the lake we walked over the causeway to the city, a great prospect with the fortifications of the ducal palace. Unfortunately, being Monday, it was closed. We did though see inside Rigoletto's house, the cathedral and another palace with fine Renaissance art. A round church 900 years old was more impressive than the gross mariolatry of the cathedral. If all your paintings have a large Mary and a baby Jesus, who is obviously most important? No wonder Muslims think the Trinity is Father , Son and Mary. I will post photos on facebook eventually but may try here too.

Lunch was a local speciality, donkey stew. Dinner, in the centre of Verona included horse with pasta. My tastes are catholic and adventurous. Why be bound by your own culture and national cuisine? Click on title for photos.

Taliban in Pakistan Warns Christian Leaders to Convert to Islam or Face Dire Consequences

'ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

Saturday, October 17, 2009 By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

SARGODHA, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on October 6, members of the Taliban sent threatening letters in Sargodha, Pakistan warning Christian leaders to convert to Islam or face dire consequences.

A copy of the letter obtained by ICC warns Christians to convert to Islam, pay Jizya tax (an Islamic tax imposed on religious minorities) or leave the country. If Christians refuse to accept the choices given to them, the letter explains that they “would be killed, their property and homes would be burnt to ashes and their women would be treated as sex slaves. And they themselves would be responsible for this.”

Rev. Zaheer Khan, pastor of Maghoo Memorial Church, Rev. Aamir Azeem, pastor of United Christians Church and Rev. Zafar Akhter, pastor of United Presbyterian Church each received a copy of threatening letter.

“The Islamists sent the letters to the following Christian institutions: St Peter’s Middle School, Sargodha Institute of Technology, Sargodha Catholic High School, St John's Primary School and Fatima Hospital,” said an ICC spokesperson.

“Besides the Christian institutions, the letter was also sent to the main Immam-Bar-Gha (Shiite Muslim’s gathering hall). Shiites are a minority Muslim group in Pakistan where the majority of the population is Sunni Muslim.”

ICC’s Jonathan Racho said, “Christians in Pakistan are soft targets for attacks by Islamic extremists. Over the past four months alone, 12 Christians have been killed by Muslims due to their faith. We are alarmed by the increase in attacks against Christians in Pakistan. We urge Pakistani officials to take the threatening letters seriously and take measures to protect the Christians and their institutions from attacks.”

Note: ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441. The ICC website is www.persecution.org
Dan Wooding, 68, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS).'

Let us pray for our brethren who are under threat.

From Verona

Yesterday we flew from Gatwick to Verona. Our car left in Epsom to where we shall return by car, our kind son in law took us to catch our plane. BA should have taken us at 12.15. We took off at 1.30. As well as inefficient BA has become mean. One measly packet of nibbles and one drink was all we were given and no bitter to drink. How can BRITISH Airways be British yet only serve lager?

Our good friend Joel met us and took us to their apartment near Verona Airport. There then followed two hours of Skype conference call with associates of our church plant in Romania, callers there and in the US. We have a difficult church and mission situation there but are encouraged to hear of the determination of all concerned to proceede in brotherly love, for church planting in Romania. We will be there on Friday, DV.

After Skype, a good Italian dinner from out hostess, Jessica. We started with big red peppers stuffed with rice and Gorgonzola. Skipping the between courses in this bog but not on our table, we finished with a fine choice of liquid refreshments including one I contributed via Islay. I had been up since 4am so retired in good time well replete despite BA's starvation.

Today has been Lord's Day rest. The church plant has services every other Sunday at present and this is the Sunday they did not meet so we enjoyed a family communion service with the Rinns and their children. Jessica's lunch was a delight, a pasta to start and four great cheeses to end plus a postscript of almond biscuits, Iccantucini, dipped in Muscat then Italian coffee to drink. I was awake enough afterwards to continue enjoying 'Calvin',s Doctrine of the Christian Life', by Ronald Wallace which is an excellent work from his Edinburgh doctrinal thesis. Now supper is coming and tomorrow sight seeing in Verona. Arena here we come.

Intern Sought for CPA Federal Office

Sunday, 18 October, 2009 4:30 PM From:
"Christian Peoples Alliance"

Assistant General Secretary of the CPA
Based at Federal Office of the Christian Peoples Alliance
St Lukes Centre, 85 Tarling Road, London E16
A volunteer intern is sought for the national office of the CPA, which is a growing Christian Democratic party based 20 minutes on the Jubilee Line from Westminster in Canning Town. The applicant will be eligible to apply for support from the Centre for Christian Democracy (CCD), as well as travel expenses from the CPA. The role will start as soon as possible and will continue until the role is reviewed after the coming General Election. It is likely to suit a recent graduate looking for experience in political administration and campaigning. Previous interns have gone on to work for political think-tanks.

Background
The Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) is a party in the Christian Democratic tradition founded in 1999 from within the cross-denominational group, the Movement for Christian Democracy (now the CCD). It exists to contest elections and to promote the social teachings of the churches. Over the past decade, the CPA has consistently been one of the best supported 'small' parties in London. This year it fought national European elections in alliance with 'The Christian Party', winning 250,000 votes. The CPA has thousands of supporters across the country and now wants to mobilise them into local groups contesting parliamentary and council elections due in 2010.

Office responsibilities
The party is run on a day to day basis by an Executive, with key decisions taken by the President and the Leader, in consultation with other officers. The party has a General Secretary who maintains the database, administers membership renewals, banks donations and answers queries by phone and email. The Executive is appointed by the CPA Federal Council, which is elected bi-annually by the national membership.

Intern role
An energetic intern is now sought for the office to help with the administration and to serve as Assistant General Secretary. They will ensure that supporters who want to form local groups or stand for Parliament get the backing they need. The candidate will be computer literate, have an interest in Christian politics, ideally have some knowledge (or willingness to learn) about the European Christian Democratic tradition and be servant-hearted. They will learn about political organisation, policy development and electoral campaigning, as well as communications.

They will join an existing office in Newham, where the CPA has councillors. The intern will work under the supervision of the General Secretary and other members of the Executive to implement the wishes of the party. They will also have a separate 'mentor' and support from both President and Leader. The office is in one of the most deprived parts of London and there will be opportunities to campaign for a distinctive Christian alternative in both the local parliamentary and council election campaigns in 2010. The hours of work will be by agreement depending on the circumstances of the successful applicant.

To discuss the role: Email press@cpaparty.org.uk or call David Campanale, CPA President on 07873 625396 or otherwise request an application form which will be sent to you. Closing date is 16th November.

Take a cab by faith

This is from a lady in our church. It is a testimony to challenge and warm the heart.

'I have to say, this week has been severely hard on my wallet and bank account. I lost my monthly travel card (again - for the second time in 1 month!!!!), my Oyster (prepaid travel card) was out of credit and ended up paying extra by cash for buses, dental costs, and to cap it all, I have been running late in the mornings one too many times that I've had to take the cab to work in the mornings (London cabs is mind-blowingly expensive!) not once, not twice but thrice this week!!!!

This morning, I wasn't running late though I did miss my ideal early train as I wanted to go in early to prepare for a presentation at work. But as I watched the early train leave the station, I vehemently protested against the idea of catching my 3rd cab to work.

But this morning there seemed to be a bemused voice in my head urging me to take the cab. And for only one reason; not that I will be early enough at the office to prepare sufficiently for the presentation, but so that I can ask the cab driver a question, "Who do you think Jesus is?"

I began to vehemently protest against the idea of catching the cab not because of the financial cost but from fear of asking the question. And then the Lord pointed out that He will give me the money to catch the cab, and seemed to dryly add that all that I have is His anyway so what am I complaining about.

My feet reluctantly trod to the direction of the mini-cab office which they now recognise my face and I did hope it would be Abdul, my driver for the last two times who is a lovely gentle and kind man - PRAY that he knows the joy of the saving grace that comes from Jesus alone!

But as the office coordinator shouted out for "B05! B05! This lady is late for work!", another chap appeared. His name is Najeeb.

As I sat in the cab I was inwardly asking nervously for help from the Holy Spirit on how to ask the question in my heart without seeming like a fanatic wanting to impose my beliefs on him.

I asked him where he's from.

From Afghanistan he replies. Then a bit of idle chatter.

I asked him what those beads hanging on his rear view mirror was and he responded that it was prayer beads. Similar to some Christians he pointed out to which I explained the difference between Catholics and to those who merely believe in Jesus.

Silence.

And I begged God inwardly again to help me to voice the words. I didn't want to just blurt out, "Who do you think Jesus is!?!!!" out of the blue. But Najeeb led by asking me questions and giving interesting responses to which despite my fears (residue of the silence imposed on myself after a number of years in secondary school of being mocked for my outspoken faith), I excitedly spoke to him of my thoughts and experience.

Then the question came, naturally, in line with what we were talking about. I liked when he said, "This is the first time I've heard this. I know Christians claim Jesus as the Son of God but you say he is God."

And we talked about Jesus owning all that the Father has because He is the Father's Son and we talked about how we're never going to be good enough on our own accord. I told him to not speak about people who kill and murder, even for me, when my housemates don't clean the house and I gripe I am already sinning. We will never get there on our own.

He mentioned then that the first thing about Islam is cleanliness. They have to be in an absolute state of cleanliness before entering the prayer room, before they can pray. I then told him about how Jesus gives us His clean cloak while he took our dirty ones and so when the Father judges, He sees His Son's robe on us as Jesus takes the punishment of our sins on His shoulders.

Before he dropped me off at the office, he spoke of being interested to sit down and talk to someone about religion - any religion. I wasn't quite sure how to urge him on, but invited him to a ceilidh dance which will be held in my church at the end of the month and gave him the date, time and postcode where the church is. As I told him that it will be lovely to meet him again, I truly meant it and know he saw that and as he said he would like to join that night, I know he meant it as well.

Pray for Najeeb that he will join the ceilidh, pray that he will meet other fellow Christians who will have the love of God strong and true in their hearts and that he will be ever increasingly encouraged to seek the Lord. Pray that he will know Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Pray that you will meet him, if not on earth, then in heaven, because you will dearly love him. You will see the gentleness that shines through his eyes, and the depth of intelligence that he never had the opportunity to explore because of war and unrest in his country (his own father studied in an American university long ago). You will love his humble simplicity as I did when he questioned how can Jesus as son be the same as the Father, like how he felt his own earthly father is in the sky who studied in America, while he is on earth, because he is just a taxi driver.

As I walked into my office I felt like I was hovering above the ground. Shamefully, me speaking about God to others is rare and far between and so when I do it is such an exciting thing that I need to share it! I was thanking the Lord for making me catch a cab and speak with Najeeb, and giving me a comfortable cab ride to boot (since He paid for it albeit through my own wallet).

Cost of sharing God's love? Priceless.'

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) - christiansquoting.org.uk

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

Our little ones, whom you so often recommend to my care and instruction, shall not be deficient in virtue or probity, if the precepts of a mother have their desired effect; but they would be doubly enforced, could they be indulged with the example of a father alternately before them. I often point them to their sire, -----"engaged in a corrupted state, Wrestling with vice and faction." -- Abigail Adams

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. - Abigail Adams (1744-1818) Letter to John Adams, 1774

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave cries give, give, give. The great fish swallows up the small, and he who is most strenuous for the Rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of Government. == Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, November 27, 1775

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.--Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818)_Letter to John Adams_ [March 31, 1776]

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.- Abigail Adams (1744-1818) Letter to her son, John Q. Adams, 1780.

On the move 17 Oct (1)

This morning we leave home for Epsom where we will leave our car. Son in law Adrian will then take us to Gatwick for 12.15 flight to Verona, our first Italian trip.

John Dalberg Acton (1834-1902) - christiansquoting.org.uk

Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgements are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing.
John Dalberg Acton (1834-1902)

History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of environment and the pressures of the air we breathe. Lord Acton (Cited in Eerdmans Handbook to the History of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 2.

In every age its [liberty's] progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food."--Lord Acton

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. -- Lord Acton

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.John Dalberg Acton (1834-1902)

There is no worse heresy then that the office sanctifies the holder of it. -- Lord Acton

Resist your time--take a foothold outside it. --Lord Acton, MSS notes, Cambridge, late 19th century

Dean Acheson (1893-1971- christiansquoting.org.uk

Always remember that the future comes one day at a time=. Dean Acheson (1893-1971) "Sketches From Life."

Pakistani Christian victims of Gojra violence refuse USAID’s aid packets

ASSIST News Service (ANS) reports on Tuesday, October 13, 2009,

'Some Pakistani Christian victims of Gojra violence refuse USAID’s aid packets
Punjab government gives double the amount of compensation to a Muslim family

By Dan Wooding and Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special to ASSIST News Service
LAHORE, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- In a rare display of defiance, a few Christian victims of Gojra threw away aid packets they had received from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday, October 5, 2009, after they alleged that the government’s interpreter was not conveying a Christian family’s point of view to the US consulate’s principal officer.


One of the affected Christians living in a tent while his burned house is being reconstructed

Some 150 Christian families were rendered homeless in Korian and Gojra after their houses were burned by miscreants following rumors that Christians of Korian had committed blasphemy in July of this year.

Gojra is a small town in the Pakistani province Punjab, near Korian, where at least seven Christians were burned alive by a gang of Muslims on August 1, 2009.

Ms. Carmela Conroy, the principal officer of the US Consulate in Lahore had personally distributed a few aid packets to some Christian victims of Korian and Gojra during a ceremony held at Catholic Church in Gojra on October 5.

USAID left the rest of the aid packets in Gojra to be distributed by Catholic Church and the local administration.
Carmela Conroy, Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Lahore


ANS has learned that the USAID’s aid packet for each of the 150 affected Christian families of Gojra and Korian consisted of six blankets, four quilts, four mattresses, four mats, two plastic buckets, two water cans, two nets, a carton of utensils and three kilograms of washing soap. These items are now lying in the Gojra Catholic Church.

A Disruption during Carmela Conroy’s 35 minute visit to the Christian colony in Gojra occurred while she was talking to Hameed’s family members. Hameed is one of the seven Christians, who lost their lives in the wake of Gojra violence in August.

ANS has discovered that a few Christian victims of Gojra threw away their aid packets that they had earlier received, when some educated Christian men alleged that the government’s interpreter was not properly conveying the reservations of Hameed’s family to the US Consulate’s principal officer.

Professor Anjum James Paul, Director of Social Harmony and Development of Women, who led a fact-finding team to Gojra to probe why some Christians refused USAID’s aid packets, told ANS that Christians said they would welcome aid from all quarters but alleged that the “partisan role of the government’s interpreter” made a few throw away their packets in anger.

A Christian spokesman for the residents of Gojra told Professor Anjum James Paul: “We are highly thankful to the US government and people who are with us to share their grief with the persecuted Christians.


A USAID packet

“We are accepting all sorts of help and we do not deny accepting aid from our brethren of the United States.

“We need justice besides help from our well wishers.”

According to the professor, at least three major factors angered Christians of Gojra:

One, the police had accused some 129 Christians of provoking the Gojra violence in a supplementary version of Police First Information report (FIR).

The number of unidentified Christians in the police FIR is 100 whereas 29 others have also been named. The addition people who have been named included the Rt. Rev. Bishop John Samuel of Faisalabad Diocese, his two sons Adnan and Sharoon, Gojra Tehsil (administrative division) and Councilor Fanyas Masih.

The affected Christians allege the police are pressuring them to broker reconciliation with Muslims. A Pakistani court on Saturday, September 19 granted bail to some 18 Muslims who were arrested in the wake of Gojra violence under the the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Two, police have arrested two Christian men named Nouman Shahu and Naveed Shahu. The local Christians demand the immediate release of the pair who are brothers..

Three, a speech by Dost Muhammad Khosa, a Muslim Member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz on October 5 added to the existing anger among Christians because Mr. Khosa had some days back given double the amount of compensation to the family of a deceased Muslim man as compared to the amount received by Christian families, who lost their loved ones during August 1 violence in Gojra.

ANS has learned that Mr. Khosa gave (10,000,000 Pakistani rupees ($12,019.23 USD) to the family of a Muslim man who died as a consequence of injuries received during Gojra violence. The Punjab government gave 500,000 Pakistani rupees ($6,006.7277 USD) compensation money to each of the Christian families of Gojra who lost their family members during Gojra violence.

Current Situation

The Government of Punjab has allocated 200 million Pakistani rupees ($2,401,248.84 USD) for the re-construction of some 150 houses of Christians in Korian and Gojra. The on-going reconstruction work will be completed in a month time at the most.

The Christians of Gojra and Korian are currently living in tents and the latter have put up tents in a graveyard. It is feared that rain could make Christians highly vulnerable to contracting water-borne diseases. Christians live in a state of fear and uncertainty. As their houses were burnt to ashes, the students are without any academic certificates and degrees. It is uncertain to say when they would get their duplicate degrees given the procedural snags in the system.

ANS has learned that Christian students in Korian are being threatened that their names would be struck off from the school enrolment register after school examinations. The majority of Christian victims in Gojra are sanitary workers whereas the Christians of Korain are brick-kiln workers, field laborers and peasants.

Interestingly, family of Hameed Masih, who was one of the seven Christians burned alive in August have not had their house reconstructed yet as they want the house to remain like this so that people visiting the area could see the extent of damage that was done to Christians houses after the houses were set on fire.

The critics say a fast-paced re-construction of Christians’ houses is underway as the Punjab government wants to cover up its failure to protect the lives and properties of Christians in Korian and Gojra.'

'Worship God Quietly' - Lambeth Council Orders Church

'A LONDON church has been told by Lambeth Council to reduce the volume of its worship.




In an extraordinary decision, All Nations Church in Kennington, South London, has been served with a noise abatement notice by Lambeth council after complaints from a couple of local residents about the level of noise coming from the church.




This is the first complaint that the church has received since it began meeting at the premises in the 1960s. Church leaders have been ordered not to amplify its music or sermons – something which will make worship very difficult for the 600-strong congregation - some of whom are elderly and hard of hearing.




The decision, which imposes a restriction on the freedom of expression of religion will, according to one of the church’s pastors, Victor Jibuike, seriously affect the congregation and potentially mean that some members will leave and worship elsewhere – something he does not want to see.






The Council Noise Abatement Notice was served on the church without warning on 25 September 2009, despite the fact a meeting with the local Councilor and residents had being arranged for 20 October with the intention of addressing the neighbours’ concerns. The Pastors of the Church wanted to do everything possible to solve the matter amicably.




Pastor Jubiuke believes the complaints which have led to the notice may also have been triggered by the church’s plans to develop a disused school into a community centre in partnership with the Council. He said: “The complaint has nothing to do with the noise and everything to do with our faith. Lambeth Council are driving us out and we feel harassed.”




The Church is being supported in its ordeal by the Christian Legal Centre.




Andrea Williams, Director of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The real issue behind this complaint is hostility to the Christian message, and the law is being used as a pretext to harass and silence Christian viewpoints not approved by the State. All Nations Church is simply trying to make Christianity relevant to 21st century Britain and it will be a great loss if the church, which is a great benefit to the community, has to curtail its activities and outreach programmes because of the Council’s actions.”





If you would like to donate to support the Christian Legal Centre in this case we would be very grateful.



Website: http://www.christianlegalcentre.com '

Where has freedom gone?

Chinua Achebe (1930-____): - christiansquoting.org.uk

Nigeria is not a great nation," he wrote. "It is one of the most disorderly nations in the world. It is one of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun. It is one of the most expensive countries and one of those that give [the] least value for money. It is dirty, callous, noisy, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short, it is among the most unpleasant places on earth! Chinua Achebe quoted in Editorial in The New Republic Mar 22, 1999

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. -Chinua Achebe (1930-____): "Arrow of God," 1967.

Anyone for Hillsong?

When is a church not a church? Is it when it does not own the name? Hillsong seems like Vineyard. Whatever you do do not mention church. On their website I looked in vain for any statement of belief. I had the impression they are' charismania meets Australia'. What do they believe? How to give to them is right there and an upcoming rugby match, but what is the content of the gospel they proclaim.? On returning to more web pages I do find they are usig the word church, but what do they believe? My query is prompted by meeting a fine Christian student who goes there but I am in the dark about what they stand for and the website seems to have no facility for me to ask.

The man of blood

ASSIST News Service reports on Friday, October 9, 2009

'An extraordinary “forgiveness” event has been scheduled for the British House of Commons on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, when Patrick (Pat) Magee, who planted the Brighton bomb, will speak alongside Jo Berry whose father, Sir Anthony Berry MP, he killed...

The infamous IRA Brighton hotel bombing occurred on October 12, 1984, at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. The bomb was planted by Patrick Magee, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was intended to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, who were staying at the hotel for the Conservative Party conference.

The bomb failed to kill Thatcher or any of her government ministers. Five people, however, were killed, including Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, and Parliamentary Treasury Secretary John Wakeham's wife Roberta. Sir Donald Maclean and his wife, Muriel, were in the room in which the bomb exploded. Lady Maclean was not killed in the explosion, but later died of her injuries, and Sir Donald was seriously injured. The other victims killed by the blast were Eric Taylor and Jeanne Shattock. Several more, including Margaret Tebbit—the wife of Norman Tebbit, who was then President of the Board of Trade—were left permanently disabled. Thirty-four people were taken to hospital but recovered from their injuries....

Belfast-born Pat Magee, former IRA activist, was given multiple life sentences for the Brighton Bombing. Released under the Good Friday Agreement in 1999, he has since been actively involved in peace work.

The event is being put on by The All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues & The Forgiveness Project .....

Pat Magee said on the website: “Some day I may be able to forgive myself. Although I still stand by my actions, I will always carry the burden that I harmed other human beings. But I’m not seeking forgiveness. If Jo could just understand why someone like me could get involved in the armed struggle then something has been achieved. The point is that Jo set out with that intent in mind – she wanted to know why.
“I decided to meet Jo because, apart from addressing a personal obligation, I felt obligated as a Republican to explain what led someone like me to participate in the action. I told her that I’d got involved in the armed struggle at the age of 19, after witnessing how a small nationalist community were being mistreated by the British. Those people had to respond. For 28 years I was active in the Republican Movement.' end quote

No. The question is not why McGee is a Republican, but why he is a murdering one. Most Republicans did not resort to murder. He did and is unrepentant. He neither desires nor merits forgiveness from his victims.. His liberty is an affront to justice for which I hold Blair responsible. Inviting him to Westminster? How foolish can you be? What next? A statue to Guy Fawkes?

Books read in October 2009 (2)

1. Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century by Neil Postman

Postman is a fan of the Enlightenment. He is very critical of the post Enlightenment modern world. He never used a typewriter, much less a computer. His critique of television is scathing as is his debunking of postmodernism. I found him both stimulating, informative and yet contradictory. He says modern man had lost a narrative to validate modernity. He has, I would say lost more than the narrative. he has lost not only a unifying world view but the attempt to find one. Postman is a great fan of childhood and of proper education. His writing on the history of childhood is fascinating. His views are sometimes surprising. He would have both evolution and creation science taught in school so the difference between good and bad science could be examined. He also sees that teachers need to know the history of science, and I would add, its limitations. The Enlightenment he says made us question everything, bringing scepticism about authority, critical learning. God has been dethroned. Man is the measure of all things. I am reminded of Connor Cruise O'Brien wring that the Enlightenment got God off our backs. Yet Postman is not a militant atheist. He wants comparative religion taught in schools for he knows religions have formed cultures. He also informs us that some famous Enlightenment figures like Paine were not atheists. This book shows us where the Enlightenment came from and where it brought benefits. he tries to give prescriptions for a return to the great Enlightenment ideas but I fear he does not give us the reasons why the Enlightenment's children have got us into our present mess. His advice is good but only part of what is needed for recovery of our true humanity as people in God;s image. History is his forte. He deserves a critical appreciative reading.

2. Calvin's doctrine of the Christian life by Ronald S Wallace

This is a doctoral thesis with a difference. It is readable and heart warming, not dry and academic. A vast reading of Calvin has produced an informative and practical book. It is an encouragement to personal holiness. Realise who you are in Christ identified with Him in death and life, Enjoy God's gifts including wine to make merry, but with moderation in all. I learned the meaning of concupiscence. It is another word for total depravity. Concupiscence refers to what we understand as the orientation, inclination or innate tendency of human beings to do evil. Always present, it must be mortified.

Jane Sherwood Ace - christiansquoting.org.uk

Familiarity breeds attempt. - Jane Sherwood Ace (1905-1974) "Easy Aces" Radio Show, 1928-1945; in "The Fine Art of Hypochondria by Goodman Ace," 1966.

Home wasn't built in a day. - Jane Sherwood Ace (1905-1974) "Easy Aces" Radio Show, 1928-1945; in "The Fine Art of Hypochondria by Goodman Ace," 1966.

(born Jane Epstein) (October 12, 1897 – November 11, 1974) was the high-voiced, malaprop-mastering wife on legendary, low-keyed American radio comedy Easy Aces (1930-45).

Attack on Home Schooling - ACT NOW

'The Consultation on the Badman Report ends 19th October. The Government want to adopt the report, to regulate and register home school parents and children 'to keep the children safe'. I can see a scenario where parents take their children out of school, the local authority go round to investigate, using the powers recommended by Badman to interview the children alone from their parents, get something they can use against the parents, take the children into care and 'free' them for adoption.
Email homeeducation.consultation@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk and oppose the Badman report. You can say:
Putting home-educating parents on a national register is an unwarranted inteference in family life, It is an intrusion for officials to have power to question children without parents being present, There is no evidence at all that home educated children are being abuses, as Badman contends, Parents must retain freedom of choice over their own child's education.' - Christian Voice

Christian office worker sues Lewisham Council for unfair dismissal

'A Christian office worker, who was sacked for posting her personal views on homosexuality on a homosexual website, is suing her former employer for unfair dismissal.




Denise Haye, 25, from South London, is bringing a legal action against her former employer, Lewisham Council, which dismissed her from her job because she left comments on the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) website about homosexual practice being contrary to biblical teaching quoting passages from the Bible.





Denise Haye came across the LGCM website whilst looking for information about churches on-line. She says she did not realise that the website she came across was a website for homosexuals.




"I didn't know it was a lesbian and gay website at first," she said.




"There was an inquiry form page that I went onto, which invites you to give opinions, so I went on to witness to them."




"It wasn't with any malicious intent and it wasn’t with any hatred, it was out of sheer concern," she added.




Denise Haye was using her work computer outside her working hours as was permitted by the Council. When she posted her comments on the LGCM website she believed, in good faith, that her comments were confidential to the website. She was totally unaware that the e-mail account she used would be visible on the website.




Shortly after, Rev. Sharon Ferguson, a lesbian political activist and Chief Executive of the LGCM, complained to Lewisham Council. The Council’s response was to suspend her from work immediately "for further investigation". After six months Miss Haye was sacked from the job.




Rev. Sharon Ferguson commented on her complaint:




"The e-mail did not address the organisation or comment on our aims or statement of conviction, therefore I do not consider it to be in the form of feedback."




"Because the e-mail was sent from an organisation that has clear equality policies I felt it was important that they were aware of the very strong views held by one of their employees"




Rev. Ferguson is arguing that the content of the e-mail was "an unprovoked personal attack".




The case of Miss Haye is supported by the Christian Legal Centre. Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of the Centre, said:




"It is wholly disproportionate to end someone's working career for the mere expression of orthodox Christian belief. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that a personal comment given in a confidential context to a website should lead to a person's dismissal"




Spokesman for the Lewisham Council said that they are unable to comment on the case in progress.'

Andrea Minichiello Williams

020 7467 5421

Christian Legal Centre

http://www.christianlegalcentre.com

So lesbianism is not compatible with freedom of speech. I thought it was only men they did not fancy.

Is Halloween Really that Significant?- Albert Mohler

Is Halloween Really that Significant?, Page 0

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Yet more dhimmitude

London Church may be Forced to Close over Muslim Neighbour Singing Complaint

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
LONDON, UK (ANS) -- If you think you’ve heard it all from post-Christian Britain, here’s a story that will shock many of you.
A London, UK, church has been effectively “silenced” by a Court after a decision by Magistrates to uphold a noise abatement notice, not to play excessive sound, after just one Muslim neighbour complained about noise levels of worship in a church which was next door to the house he purchased.
Singing Songs of Praise on a Sunday is normal Church activity. Using amplification is a normal part of Church life and it was argued at the Court hearing that the normal use of a Church building entails worship and cannot constitute noise nuisance.
According to the Christian Legal Centre (www.christianlegalcentre.com), Immanuel House of Worship Church (IHOW) has been meeting at 89 Vallentin Road in Walthamstow, London, since it bought the premises in 2006.
“The Church was built in 1894 and was formerly used by the United Reformed Church, when the Church owned all the land on which the current properties are now built,” said a spokesperson for the London-based Christian Legal Centre.
“The property next door to the church, No 87, was formerly the Manse (vicarage) until 1989, when it was then sold by the United Reformed Church. In 2005, No 87 was sold to the current occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Baha Uddin.
“From 2005 – 2006, the property was empty and vagrants frequently hung around church. Currently, the IHOW church offers a nursery to serve the whole neighborhood and has an impressive list of neighbors who welcome the church and who do not regard their worship as a problem.
“However, Mr. and Mrs. Uddin complained about the level of noise of worship coming from the church for just 40 minutes a week and an Abatement Notice was served on the Church Trustees on 6 May 2009 under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 section 79(1) (g). The church appealed to the magistrate court and the hearing took place on 5 and 6 October at Waltham Forest Magistrates Court.”
Mr. Ade Ajike, a trustee of the church said: “When we moved into Valentinn Road in 2007, and we had renovated the property and bricked up the three windows facing house No 87. We also double glazed all the windows, except one stained glass window, and spent £10,000 ($16,000 USD) to carry out sound-reducing. In fact, the Council’s environmental department at the time said it would be enough just to brick up the windows.
“After moving in we invited Environmental Officers to visit the premises and we got the OK. We also visited neighbors and took them potted plants, and had no problem until Mr. Uddin made his official complaint in August 2008.
“Gary Vickers, an Environmental health enforcement officer visited Mr Uddin’s house on 10th August (Sunday worship service time) and on 12 August issued a letter to us saying that in his opinion, the volume from the music was of statutory noise nuisance level throughout the neighbours’ property. He suggested to deal with matter through sensible negotiation, informing our pastor that ‘the church had to keep the noise down so as not to offend the Muslims living in the area’. He told us ‘this is a Muslim borough, you have to tread carefully’.”
According to the Christian Legal Centre, during August, IHOW took action. They reduced hours of Sunday worship from 4 hours to 2 hours 30 minutes, of which music is played for about 45 minutes. They reduced their weekly services to one service on Sunday, and all mid-week services held are skeletal services without music. Sunday evening services were reduced to once a month. The trustees also took the decision not to hire out the premises in case noise would aggravate Mr. Uddin, a move which has cost the church additional revenue. However, the visiting officer changed and questioning got more “hostile”.
Mr. Ajike said: “Officers questioned the church why they needed amplifiers when 50 years ago the Church would not have used drums and amplified music. On 6 May 2009, an Abatement Notice was issued against the church alleging an unreasonable level of noise nuisance caused by excessive loud amplified music and drums.
“Since then we have stopped using drums and further reduced our worship time to 20 minutes beginning from 11.30am on a Sunday morning. We have also restricted church services to once a week. Despite all our action, Mr. Uddin, who actually lives in what was the former Manse (vicarage) to the church, would stand at church’s main entrance door and shout his complaints and demand our pastor come out to speak to him during his sermon.”
Now the IHOW has sought the advice of the Christian Legal Centre over their plight and to appeal this week’s decision. CLC has instructed leading Human Right’s expert Paul Diamond to represent the church at the Appeal.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the CLC said: “The charge of nuisance in law must involve proving there is a substantial interference with comfort. Surely, any reasonable person would think that singing for 40 minutes or so once or twice a week would not cross this threshold.
"Worship in a Church is to be expected. The Environmental Health Officers do not seem to have taken this fact into account. This is a vibrant Afro Caribbean community of Christian believers whose worship of God is fundamental to the expression of their faith. The richness and vibrancy of groups like the London Gospel Community Choir is based on the Afro Caribbean expression of faith through music.”
For more information, please go to www.christianlegalcentre.com

Karl Abraham - christiansquoting.org.uk

A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work. --Karl Abraham (3 May 1877 – 25 December 1925) early German psychoanalyst, and a correspondent of Sigmund Freud, who called him his 'best pupil'

Child prostitution

'We reached Pune armed with information about two Bangladeshi victims, aged 16 and 14. After planning the investigation, two Freedom Firm operatives searched the area but couldn't find the girls. Unfortunately our information was inaccurate. Although discouraged, the operatives moved up the street to do random investigations. Entering a building nearby, they noticed a girl aged about 14 or 15 through an open door. She was crying and appeared desperate. Two men were negotiating a price for the girl with a brothel keeper while trying to convince the girl to prostitute. She was refusing but that didn't appear to matter.
They called me immediately with the information and we agreed that the operatives should "engage the girl" (pay for time with her) to buy us time to call in the local police. They paid for one hour, and in order to stall a little longer had drinks brought for them and soda pop for the girl.
Meanwhile, I called the Crime Branch of Pune and requested for urgent intervention to rescue the targeted girl. I kept close surveillance, and within 10 minutes the Crime Branch team arrived, met up with me, and called in the local police to raid the brothel. Together we entered the building. We found a total of six minor girls who had been forced into prostitution there and rescued them all. The traffickers tried to escape from the brothel, but the police caught them; in all, the brothel keeper, two male traffickers, and a female trafficker were arrested.
As we prepared to leave the scene, a mob of local pimps, customers and brothel keepers formed around one of the operatives and me. Fortunately, the police had not yet left and they were able to escort us to safety.'
--------------------
This account comes from Shyam K., Freedom Firm's Senior Investigator. Shyam works with our team of operatives to find trafficked girls. He then assists local police to raid brothels, rescue girls, and arrest perpetrators.

Freedom Firm
78/85, Indu Sadan
Glenrock
Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India
643 001

Languages in the UK

My professional Journal gave me this, ' A day for minding our languages By Bystander
Today, 26 September 2009, is the European Day of Languages — a Council of Europe initiative introduced in 2001 to celebrate language and cultural diversity......

The UK is unusual in having no constitutionally defined official language. This is because English has been so predominant that it is accepted as the de facto primary tongue.

However, no fewer that six other native tongues have been recognised by the UK government under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, which protects traditional languages spoken by nationals. The six are Lowland Scots (1.5 miliion speakers), Welsh (600,000), Irish (110,000), Scottish Gaelic (60,000), Uster Scots (30,000) and Cornish (3,500).'

So is their any broadcasting in Lowland Scots?

I am a leftie

I now get Hadith of the Day on Facebook. It is part of my ongoing education to understand Islam. Today it says,' Narrated 'Aisha: The Prophet used to love to start doing things from the right side whenever possible, in performing ablution, putting on his shoes, and combing his hair. (Al-Ash'ath said: The Prophet used to do so in all his affairs.)'

I reflect that I am not a follower as I part my hair from the left, put on shoes and gloves from the left, etc.

Peter Abelard- christiansquoting.org.uk

We do not easily suspect evil of those whom we love the most. --Peter Abelard c1132 Historia Calamitatum Ch.6

Edward Abbey (1927-1989)- christiansquoting.org.uk

A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die.--Edward Abbey

Growth merely for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.= Edward Abbey

John Wesley's "Directions for Singing" (from Select Hymns, 1761)

I. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.

II. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.

III. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find a blessing.

IV. Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.

V. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.

VI. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.

VII. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

W.C Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell= christiansquoting.org.uk

During a great part of the eighteenth century most Tories hated him because he overthrew the monarchy, most Whigs because he overthrew Parliament. Since Carlyle wrote, all liberals have seen in him their champion, and all revolutionists have apotheosized the first great representatives of their school; while, on the other side, their opponents have hailed the dictator who put down anarchy. Unless the socialists or the anarchists finally prevail- and perhaps even then - his fame seems as secure as human reputation is likely to be in a changing world. -- W.C Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell

OC is a Marmite character. You love him or hate him - GJW

Disturbing Stats

'51% of adults were registered as
married in 2007, compared with 59%
in 1998, according to the Offi ce of
National Statistics. Within a year it is
anticipated that it will fall below 50%.
The number of weddings in England
and Wales is now the lowest it has
been since 1895 – despite a vastly
increased population. Almost half of
women living outside wedlock had
children. Recent changes in the tax
and welfare system mean that married couples can be up to
£5,000 per year worse off than those who remain single.' - THE MONTHLY RECORD - April 2009

Nicola Abbagnano - christiansquoting.org.uk

Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic. - Nicola Abbagnano (1900 1990) Italian existential philosopher.

Assisted dying

From The Times
September 26, 2009
Assisted dying
This move to liberalise, although not without its rationale, is profoundly flawed

Sir, There is an exceptionally strong argument against liberalisation of legislation on assisted dying (report, Sept 24), found in the bitter experience of other countries and regions where the law has been relaxed. Both Oregon in the US and Northern Territory in Australia liberalised and soon had a disaster on their hands as elderly and unwell people reported sensing a growing feeling of being a burden on their relatives. In both cases the law was quickly tightened again. A related lesson is the case of the Netherlands where, once the idea of the sanctity of life had been lost through liberalisation of assisted suicide, involuntary euthanasia eventually became commonplace.

This move to liberalise, although not without its rationale, is profoundly flawed. Whatever our personal position may be on the question of faith, there is no denying the demonstrable disaster that liberalisation has been elsewhere. And whatever our feelings on the subject, learning from the mistakes of others wherever possible is wiser than repeating them.

Andrea Minichiello-Williams

Barrister and Executive Director,

The Christian Legal Centre

Zen- christiansquoting.org.uk

Q. What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A. "Make me one with everything."

On presenting a $10 bill to the vendor, He asked for his change...the vendor replied "But change comes from within."

Do Jews Have a Divine Right in the Promised Land?

John Piper on April 17, 2002 wrote,


'How should Bible-believing Christians align themselves in the Jewish-Palestinian conflict? There are Biblical reasons for treating both sides with compassionate public justice in the same way that disputes should be settled between nations generally. In other words, the Bible does not teach us to be partial to Israel or to the Palestinians because either has a special divine status.

I do not deny that Israel was chosen by God from all the peoples of the world to be the focus of special blessing in the history of redemption which climaxed in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. "The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Nor do I deny that God promised to Israel the presently disputed land from the time of Abraham onward. God said to Moses, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, 'I will give it to your offspring'" (Deuteronomy 34:4).

But neither of these Biblical facts leads necessarily to the endorsement of present-day Israel as the rightful possessor of all the disputed land. Israel may have such a right. And she may not. But that decision is not based on divine privilege. Why?

First, a non-covenant-keeping people does not have a divine right to hold the land of promise. Both the blessed status of the people and the privileged right to the land are conditional on Israel's keeping the covenant God made with her. Thus God said to Israel, "If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples" (Exodus 19:5). Israel has no warrant to a present experience of divine privilege when she is not keeping covenant with God.

More than once Israel was denied the experience of her divine right to the land when she broke covenant with God. For example, when Israel languished in captivity in Babylon, Daniel prayed, "O Lord . . .we have sinned and done wrong . . . To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame . . . to all Israel . . . in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you" (Daniel 9:4-7; see Psalm 78:54-61). Israel has no divine right to be in the land of promise when she is breaking the covenant of promise.

This does not mean that other nations have the right to molest her. She still has human rights among nations when she has no divine right. Nations that gloated over her divine discipline were punished by God (Isaiah 10:5-13).

Secondly, Israel as a whole today rejects her Messiah, Jesus Christ, God's Son. This is the ultimate act of covenant-breaking with God. God promised that to Israel "a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6-7). But with tears this Prince of Peace looked out over Jerusalem and said, "Would that you . . . had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. . . . You did not know the time of your visitation" (Luke 19:42-44).

When the builders rejected the beautiful Cornerstone, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits" (Matthew 21:43). He explained, "Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness" (Matthew 8:11-12)

God has saving purposes for ethnic Israel (Romans 11:25-26). But for now the people are at enmity with God in rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ, their Messiah (Romans 11:28). God has expanded his saving work to embrace all peoples (including Palestinians) who will trust his Son and depend on his death and resurrection for salvation. "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith" (Romans 3:29-30).

The Christian plea in the Middle East to Palestinians and Jews is: "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31). And until that great day when both Jewish and Gentile followers of King Jesus inherit the earth (not just the land), without lifting sword or gun, the rights of nations should be decided by the principles of compassionate and public justice, not claims to national divine right or status.'

I am 1005 In agreement.

© Desiring God

Zeal- christiansquoting.org.uk

One of the tragedies of human history that *the children of darkness* are frequently more determined and zealous than *the children of light*. ~Martin Luther King Jr

Youth - christiansquoting.org.uk

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. - Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 &endash; 1928)

The young always have the same problem , how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. Quentin Crisp

Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor. --Euripides

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way. ~Judith Martin "Miss Manners

God...frequently...makes young men and women wiser than the aged, and gives to many, in a very short time, a closer and deeper communion with himself than others attain in a long course of years.-John Wesley ,letter: , 27 Dec 1774

Christian hotel owners charged with criminal offence for saying that hijab is oppressive

'A Christian couple are awaiting trial accused of breaching public order by insulting a guest at their hotel in Aintree, Liverpool, about her religion. If convicted they face a fine of up to £5,000 and a criminal record. They also face losing their livelihood as their business takings have badly suffered as a result of the case.



In March 2009, Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang had argued with a Muslim guest at the breakfast table in their hotel, the Bounty House Hotel in Aintree, about the history of Islam and Muslim traditions. The unnamed guest, who was staying at the hotel while being treated at a nearby hospital, came down to breakfast wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim headdress covering the hair.



It is alleged that during the conversation the couple suggested that Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a warlord when the guest challenged them about their Christian beliefs. The woman guest also claims that the couple, who vehemently deny the allegations and say they were simply defending their faith, described her traditional dress as a form of bondage.



After the conversation ended, the guest complained to police and the couple were charged under the Public Order Act 1986 – with a public order offence designed to target anti-social behaviour on the streets for using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words’ which were ‘religiously aggravated’. The couple will have to stand trial at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on 8 December 2009.



The unnamed guest had been staying at the Bounty House Hotel racecourse for four weeks while receiving treatment at a local hospital, but the couple had never seen her wear her religious clothing before. The hospital routinely referred outpatients to stay at the hotel. But when management found out about the court case they decided they could no longer recommend it, leading to the catastrophic drop in bookings, the Daily Mail reported.



Mr Vogelenzang denies calling Mohammad a ‘warlord’. It is understood that his wife accepts that she used the word ‘bondage’ about Islamic dress but denies deliberately causing offence.



Neil Addison, a leading criminal barrister and expert in religious law, explained that the law ‘should never be used where there has been a personal conversation or debate with views firmly expressed’.



Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute, said:



‘Important issues of religious liberty and free speech are at stake. We have detected a worrying tendency for public bodies to misapply the law in a way that seems to sideline Christianity more than other faiths.



'Nobody was being threatened and while the Vogelenzangs were fully aware that a robust exchange had taken place and the woman had been perhaps a little offended, they were shocked when the police became involved.



‘We feel their treatment has been heavy-handed and it is not in the public interest to go ahead with this prosecution. People see the police standing by when Muslims demonstrate holding some pretty bloodthirsty placards, but at the same time come down hard on two Christians having a debate over breakfast at a hotel.



‘We are just hoping the magistrates use their common sense and find them not guilty.’



Lorne Gunter, a senior columnist at the Edmonton Journal, wrote in the National Post blog:

'... the Vogelenzangs lost four-fifths of their business overnight because public hospital administrators decided to punish them economically for their political incorrectness. Would these same administrators have withheld referrals to Muslims hoteliers who similarly defended their faith with guests? It's hard to know, but it seems unlikely.

'Muslims routinely demonstrate in Britain while displaying the most heinous placards urging death on anyone who defames their religion or prophet and are never charged with offending mainstream British society.'


Henry Porter, commenting in The Guardian, said:

'You may, or may not agree, with these sentiments but surely they don't merit a prosecution in a society where a good deal of latitude shown to the racism and homophobia preached by some imams. I can't comment on the exact details of what the couple may have said, or their manner, or the offence taken by the customer but I can say that free speech – even about religion – is the freedom to be offended, and that the decision to prosecute is about as daft as it gets.'



The case of Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang was mentioned on the BBC’s Question Time debate on Thursday, 24 September, when Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator magazine, told Harriet Harman that Government officials, like Baroness Scotland, get away easily if they do something wrong whilst for simple people the law comes 'like a tonne of bricks' for saying minor things. Mr Nelson gave the example of the Vogelenzangs who were arrested for offending a Muslim during a simple discussion about religious traditions. He added:

'I don’t think the Government realises just how heavy-handed [the law] has become with the small people while the big guys get away with anything.''- from CFCON

So when was the right to free speech abolished?

Yorkshire - christiansquoting.org.uk

You can always tell a Yorkshire man...... but you can't tell him much

More than any other county in England, Yorkshire retained a sort of social independence of London. Scotland itself was hardly more distinct... To a certain degree, evident enough to Yorkshiremen, Yorkshire was not English--or was all England, as they might choose to express it. --Henry Adams, 1906

I lingered round them [tombstones], under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. --Emily Bronte (1818-1848) _Wuthering Heights_ [1847], "Conclusion"

Ah's Yorkshire! bi mi truly!
Ah is, Ah'm proud ti say;
Just try ya ti get ower mah,
Ye'll heve eneaf ti deah.
Ah's oppen-gobbed an's soft-life;
Ah knaw mare than ah tell;
The fellah that wad bite mah
All seaf get bit his sel. Ah's Yorkshire.

Ah's Yorkshire! Ah's a plain stick,
What's that? It's been mi luck
Ti bi like monny a diamond,
Covered at top wi muck.
Some fooaks weear t'muck at insard
Seeah deep its scarcely seen
Nooah's flood a pure soft watter
Wad scarcely wesh em clean. Ah's Yorkshire.

Ah's Yorkshire ti the back beean
Out-spokken, frank and free,
Ah hat a leear as Ah hat
Awd Nick, that tell'd first lee.
Ance Ah may be catch'd nappin,
We all may slip sum day
But twice if ye get ower mah,
Ah nivvr mair al say, Ah's Yorkshire.
William Hall Burnett, _Ah's Yorkshire_, 19C

He is Yorkshire--said of a shrewd man.-- quoted in John Ray, _A Compleat Collection of English Proverbs_, 1670

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was eleven miles away from a lemon. - Sydney SMITH

Topcliffe formerly denominated the Jordan of England, because in the year 620, Agustin and Paul baptized in this river Swale 10,000 men in one day, besides women and children. This took place somewhere between Topcliffe and Helperby. -- Langdale's Yorkshire Topographical Dictionary
(I have no corroborative source for this and suspect it may result from a confusion with Swale in Kent)

I rode over the mountains to Huddersfield. A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women and children filled the streets and seemed just ready to devour us. John Wesley June 1757

The Court here stopt him, and the Prince did say,
Where may we find this Nectar, I thee pray,
The Boon Fellow answer'd, I can tell,
North-Allerton, in Yorkshire doth excell
ASll England, nay all Europe for strong Ale,
If thither we adjourn, we shall not fail
To taste such humming Stuff, as, I dare say,
Your Highness never tasted to this day.
They hearing this, the House Agreed upon
All for Adjournment to North-Allerton.
George Meriton The Praise of Yorkshire Ale, Wherein is enumerated several Sorts of Drinks, with a Discription of the Humors of most sorts of Drunkards.1685

Christian Legal Centre statement on DPP's Assisted Suicide Guidelines

'The Christian Legal Centre is deeply concerned at the publication by the DPP today, 23rd September, of interim guidelines relating to assisted suicide and factors which will weigh against prosecution.



Although the guidelines will be subject to consultation before becoming fully established policy, the Centre’s Executive Director, Barrister Andrea Williams has serious misgivings.



‘Our hearts of course go out to elderly and unwell people who are suffering from horrible medical conditions and to their loved ones. But we believe that all life should be protected in law and that the guidelines published today will cause great harm to individuals and society.



We should learn from other jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been legalised. Very soon, elderly and vulnerable people surveyed by researchers report a shift in perception towards seeing themselves as a burden on their families and being under a ‘duty to die’.



Additionally, we are concerned that the system will be open to abuse and to a creeping, ever-widening application, which has been observed in previous cases in our own legal history where laws have been injudiciously liberalised.



We shall do all we can to raise awareness of these underestimated factors in the run up to the consultation. In other jurisdictions similar laws have soon been abandoned when the damage becomes evident, but only after that damage has been done. We would rather we turn back from this profoundly mistaken policy before that is allowed to happen’



To read full coverage on this breaking story please click on the link below to be taken to our website:



http://www.christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=858'

The bottom line here is 'Whose life is it?' Is it mine, a mere product of time and chance, to be disposed of as I see fit? Or is life a gift from God, given to me, and not to be shortened for whatever reason I may deem sufficient.

Iranian Christian Women Still Held in Prison

"The Voice of the Martyrs" says,'Maryam Rustampoor, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, were arrested and sent to Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. The two women did not rob a bank, kill a man or beat up someone.

Their crime? Loving Jesus. And it is for this reason alone they are still imprisoned.

In August during a court hearing, the two were questioned repeatedly about their faith. They were told to return to Islam.

"We love Jesus," was their reply. Prosecutors asked the women, who had already spent five months in prison, if they regretted being Christians.

"We have no regrets," they said. "We will not deny our faith."

The judge sent them back to Evin Prison - notorious for its brutality - to "think about" their decision.

"We have already done our thinking," they told him.

Maryam and Marzieh are among dozens of Iranian Christians arrested, detained or interrogated in Iran in recent months. The harassment is the radical Islamic government's response to an Iranian revival that has thousands of Iranians coming to Christ each month.'

Wrath - christiansquoting.org.uk

We may sum up the relationship between God's love and wrath with the statement, so vital for understanding His plan in redemptive history, that God's kindness...is His free, ultimate work in which His soul finally and fully delights, whereas God's wrath in punishment is His necessary, penultimate work. Though He finds no pleasure in punishing the wicked, He nevertheless does it as somehting He must do, so that without devaluing His glory, He can fully rejoice in being merciful to the penitent. DANIEL FULLER