Contents

FEATURES

‘Non-directive’ preaching is no preaching at all

BBC Christians and other evangelical escapes

Jewish mission – not an option

A sower went out to sow his seed: The work of Farming Christian Link

Church order – it matters

Building a life-affirming church culture: A challenge to pursue a biblical view of the dignity and worth of every human life

COMMENT: A sad day, but the sadness has been a long time in the making

GUEST COLUMN: Engaging cult members with the gospel

THINKING IT THROUGH: Confessions then and now: Do we need creeds and confessions?

A WALK WITH MR O: In all good conscience

A SHRINK THINKS... God paints behind the wardrobes

CRUNCH POINTS: The trend of being nice

NEWS

News in brief

Evangelicals react as Church of England backs plans to bless same-sex couples

Government vows to protect churches from ban on conversion practices

Mother accuses school of ‘indoctrination’ over education as her 4-year-0ld is forced to take part in gay pride event

Charges dropped against woman prosecuted for praying near to an abortion clinic, but legal clarification is still needed from the courts

Sturgeon resigns following criticism for her ‘omnishambles’ transgender laws

Minister says teachers under pressure to be silent about progressive ideology

Grace Baptist Assembly to debate current pressures on churches

Obituary: Eric Alexander (1932–2023)

North Gate Hall, Oxford, becomes new home for Presbyterian church

Poisoned but preserved – Pierre Viret and other Reformers surveyed at three-day conference held in Teddington church

World Religions and Cults Conference held in London

Unashamed of the gospel – Banner Borders Conference held in Carlisle

Induction service welcomes Andrew Hill to Hayes Town Chapel, London

Sixty ministers gather for prayer and ministry at EFCC conference

Australia: New transgender bill in Queensland set to allow 12-year-olds to swap their legal sex

US: March for Life rally descends on Washington

Turkey/Syria: Christian charities on the ground helping earthquake victims

US: Arkansas Governor to put limits on ‘drag story hour’ in public spaces

Africa: Five Christian hospitals give much thanks for ‘timely’ PPE items

Global: List reveals the countries where persecution against Christians is worst

REVIEWS

The StoryChanger

Thomas Charles of Bala

10 Women Who Overcame Their Past

Luther and the Reformation

Sacrifice

Remember The Sabbath Day

FEATURES

‘Non-directive’ preaching is no preaching at all

It sounds like something straight from George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’. But it is in fact language that the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities Committee are using as they explore outlawing ‘conversion therapy’. The committee has concluded that religious teaching and prayer about sexual identity should only be permitted if it’s conducted in a ‘non-directive way’.

I love the thought of Christian preachers working out what ‘non-directive’ preaching looks like! It’s a bit like the invention of the ‘stationary’ car, an ‘opaque’ pair of spectacles. The language of ‘non-directive’ religious teaching is almost comical in its failure to appreciate the first thing about human beings and God.

PC Pentecost

I can imagine the apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost, standing up to announce to the crowds that they have crucified the Christ, but that God has raised him from the dead. When he gets to the climax of his sermon, Peter says: ‘Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins’ (Acts 2:38).

But then he remembers the Scottish legislation and corrects himself: ‘Whoops! Sorry, I mean… I’d love you to think about all of that, but in a non-directive way, of course! And if anyone would possibly, maybe, like the idea of being baptised, come and talk to us. But please understand there’s no pressure, no obligation, at all!’

Maybe the members of the Equalities Committee have experienced ‘non-directive’ preaching from pulpits. I admit there’s plenty of it around, and it can be sleep-inducing. But it’s not actually real preaching. All true preaching is ‘directive’ by definition. If it’s not directive, it’s not preaching!

Doers and hearers

One 19th century textbook on preaching says, ‘Whenever there is no direct purpose in the speaker to educe an action of will in his hearers there is no proper oration.’ Likewise, a ‘non-directive’ morality is nonsense.

Morality is ‘directive’ by definition. Right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and wickedness are not abstract ideas simply to ponder in glorious abstraction, but principles to act upon. ‘Be doers of the word, and not hearers only’ (James 1:22).

If you hold moral convictions that are never expressed in the presence of what is wrong, they will end up shrivelling and dying.

Verb hunting

‘Non-directive’ religion will mean that the censors have to cut most of the apostle Paul’s letters in half and put the second part through the paper-shredder.

The Scottish government are okay with Ephesians chapters 1–3. That’s just ‘teaching’. But when Paul gets to his ‘therefore’ in chapter 4, all the ‘directive’ instruction in chapters 4–6 needs to be binned. Censors will have to hunt down every verb in the imperative form and axe it.

We can say, ‘God is holy, God is love. Jesus is love, and Jesus teaches us to love.’ But you can’t say, ‘Love God.’ Whoops – sorry – that last sentence was too directive, wasn’t it?

Of course, many people will love the sound of a non-directive Jesus leading his non-directive church to teach non-directive lessons and offer non-directive prayers.

But directions are quite simply what we do! We can’t ‘non-directively’ direct people away from the broad road that leads to hell and towards the narrow way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).

Sexual confusion

Our direction includes addressing the issue of one’s sexual identity. We’re seeking to direct everyone’s sexual identity. This is what the Christian church has been busy doing since God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins in the Garden of Eden. It’s what that wonderful word ‘repent’ means.

Today, young people are growing up in sexual confusion. They don’t know who or what their bodies are for (clue: it’s not themselves).

We preach and teach that Jesus Christ, the Saviour, has come to powerfully release them from self and direct them back to God. Any faithful Christian minister, youth worker, or parent worth their salt will go on directing young people under their care in this light.

Direction not manipulation

Now, there is a legitimate discussion to be had about what that moral ‘direction’ looks like. I’d be quick to say the church is not seeking to physically coerce and cajole anyone into certain forms of behaviour. There are ways that church leaders can act manipulatively and in sinfully controlling ways.

But morality, by definition, does need to be enforced. Parents consistently find themselves coercing and cajoling their children, with warnings and promises, backed up by actions. Teachers exert control and pressure over their classes, backed up by actions. And let’s not pretend that this proposed ‘conversion therapy’ legislation itself isn’t an attempt to enforce morality, with some pretty hefty threats.

Moral imperatives

Let’s face it. Being told that your experiences and actions are sinful in the sight of God is never nice. No one likes being on the receiving end of a group’s moral judgments.

But like it or not, that is precisely what any moral system does. A moral position that does not label certain things right and other things wrong is simply not a moral position.

In fact, a moral position that believes certain things are right and wrong, but never seeks to voice or direct people accordingly, has become immoral!

I’m not under any illusion that Jesus’s sexual ethics are popular today. But to tell the church to teach them in a ‘non-directive’ way is asking us to say that human sexual experience and action is no longer even in the moral realm.

It’s ludicrous! Make no mistake, any legislation that says Christian churches will be ‘free’ to teach and pray in ‘non-directive’ ways is like a policeman telling you he’s protecting your freedom, while simultaneously handcuffing you.

It is a muzzling of the church’s prophetic voice. It’s not a good faith attempt to tackle a crime or scandalous behaviour in the church, but an attempt to shove a cloth down the church’s throat.

Jesus Christ is gloriously ‘directive’, and the preaching, teaching, and prayers of his church will continue to direct people back to God until his return, whatever the kings of the earth may say (Psalm 2:1-5).

By Simon Arscott, Simon has been sent by the International Presbyterian Church to lead All Nations Church, Ilford.

BBC Christians and other evangelical escapes

Evangelicals are currently being stress tested by an increasingly hostile culture. There is a great temptation to find a way to escape. Here are five evangelical escapes currently on offer.

BBC Christians

BBC Christians escape trouble by staying mainstream. I recently heard this term – ‘BBC Christians’ – used to describe evangelicals who are happy to follow the Bible until it means doing something of which the BBC disapproves.

Fitting in with the mainstream is crucial to BBC Christians, whether that means wearing the rainbow lanyard or using preferred pronouns. In church they may nod along to biblical teaching to marriage, but they are equally happy to accept an invitation to a gay wedding.

To BBC Christians, Bill Clinton’s view that abortion should be ‘safe, legal, and rare’ seems much more reasonable than to speak of the genocide of the unborn. They don’t like abortion, but they don’t like the idea of restricting someone’s freedom of choice.

Many BBC Christians have public sector jobs where the culture seamlessly meshes with the BBC editorial line. They have learnt to fit in and get on. Any twinge of conscience is usually suppressed by the thought that it’s not winsome to be seen as unloving.

How many BBC Christians exist within evangelical churches is becoming clearer as the BBC’s ‘establishment view’ comes increasingly into conflict with the Bible. A stark choice reveals where the heart’s loyalty lies. 1 John 2:19 is a needful comfort when there are painful partings of ways.

Crusading Christians

These evangelicals hope to gain currency with our culture by crusading on issues of common concern. Crusading Christians are determined to call out wrongdoing among Christians – and especially Christians leaders. Such evangelical voices are often heard railing against appalling sins like child abuse and antisemitism. They also highlight issues which are harder to define, like spiritual abuse.

Crusading Christians can have such moral certainty that it appears that the end – to expose wrongdoing – justifies the means. Recently an evangelical Anglican vicar, Nick Howard, publicly – and selectively – quoted from an email from FIEC National Director John Stevens marked ‘private and confidential’.

Howard’s justification for publicising private correspondence ended with the statement, ‘my considered opinion was that nothing would have been gained from further personal correspondence.’

Crusading Christians all too frequently will accept nothing less than full acceptance of their viewpoint and full implementation of their demanded remedial actions. Publishing private information, imputing wrong motives, character attacks, and more are launched on those who will not bow to their demands.

Sadly, it sometimes seems that crusading Christians feel more at one with unbelievers with whom they collaborate than believers who won’t fully go along with them.

Crusading Christians attract followers hungry for the latest fix of salacious gossip regarding well-known Christian leaders. Some crusading Christians use the occasion of disqualifying sin as an opportunity to air old grievances or push a progressive agenda in the churches. For example, bullying behaviour by a male church leader is used to demand diversity, such as women in church leadership.

Evangelicals who question crusading Christians can receive a volley of invective suggesting they are protecting abusers, promoting sinful attitudes, or propping up sinful institutions. Unlike evangelicals who campaign for biblical standards in a passionate but proportionate way, crusading Christians too often adopt the methods of the current cancel culture – and seek its approval.

Nostalgic Christians

These believers find it so hard to live in the present that they take refuge in favourite (and thus selective) memories from the past. Speaking to nostalgic Christians you will hear vivid descriptions of huge Sunday schools, packed youth rallies, and standing-room only in churches.

You will find that once there was preaching that really gripped the attention, leaders who stood for truth and were vindicated, churches run in an ideally balanced way, and evangelicals cooperating to great effect. If only that were true today!

Nostalgic Christians must be distinguished from sympathetic seasoned saints. Many older believers share stories from the past to give thanks to God for his providence, to show how they learned along the way and thus to encourage younger believers to go on. Such older believers often undervalue their presence in churches when they are – among other things – a huge blessing through their mature wisdom and reflections.

Nostalgic Christians, on the other hand, discourage through acerbic critique of the present against a backdrop of an idealised view of the past. In fact, they prefer to live in the past to escape having to think about the present.

Online Christians

These evangelicals don’t escape into the past but into an online world. They find it very hard to settle in a church because its elders cannot live up to the standard set by Pastor John online. Online Christians tend to get caught up in the latest controversies from another land, become avid followers of certain bloggers or enthralled by the latest video served up by YouTube.

A key characteristic of online Christians is an infallible faith in their gifts of discernment. They are confident that, even when listening to men known to deviate from key doctrines, they can discern truth from error and thus won’t be adversely influenced. Ironically, online Christians can be suckers for slick graphics and a clever turn of phrase.

Online Christians can be restless church-hoppers, never managing to find a local church that matches what they’ve found online. Some even stop attending altogether, dampening down their consciences with the thought that they are being well-fed online. Were they actually living near a church whose services they stream, online Christians may not find its membership requirements so congenial.

Niche Christians

These evangelicals escape trouble with the world by focusing all their time and energies on furthering a niche cause within evangelicalism. Often this niche cause is billed as the solution to church decline – if only others would wake up and embrace it!

Most exciting of all is a new niche with a newsletter pushed to those expected to be supportive, a blog, a website, a committee, and a conference. Satisfaction is found in activity. The niche Christian may advocate a cause that is worthy but it gains a prominence in their lives vastly in advance of its helpfulness.

How can I discover whether I am becoming a niche Christian? I can ask: is my status in a particular parachurch group more important to me than my identity in Christ? Are my time, treasure, and talents utterly tied up in this group or cause? How often does my commitment to this niche come before my commitment to my local church?

Ordinary Christians

There’s a place where BBC Christians are called to full discipleship. Where crusading Christians are reminded that they have more in common with believers than unbelievers. Where nostalgic Christians find hope for the present, not escape into the past. Where online Christians can truly worship and find teaching from those whose lives they can know. Where niche Christians can benefit from the ordinary means of grace. It is a gathering of the local church.

Each of us is confronted with an evangelical escape to which we are susceptible. We can see them much more easily in others than in ourselves. It’s easier to be in the barracks than in the battle. As many ex-professional footballers have found, it’s much easier offering an armchair critique than getting stuck in yourself.

Let’s be honest. Evangelism is tough. Cultural pressures are increasing. No wonder evangelical escapes are popular. But, as Bunyan’s pilgrims found as they approached the town of Vanity, ‘he that will go to the [Celestial] City, and yet not go through this town, must needs “go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:10). The Prince of princes himself, when there, went through this town to his own country.’

Let’s be positive too. We have extraordinary power on our side in the ordinary means of grace. Charles Hodge described them as ‘ordinary channels… of the supernatural influences of the Holy Spirit, to the souls of men’. Let’s be ordinary Christians.

By Paul Smith, Paul is a full-time elder of Grace Baptist Church, Broadstairs, Kent.

Jewish mission – not an option

Aurel Vidal, a missionary with International Mission to Jewish People, first met Anthony, a young Jewish musician from Marseille, while sharing the gospel on the streets of Paris. They exchanged contact information, and in the weeks that followed, Aurel and Anthony began meeting regularly to talk about spiritual things.

Aurel was struck by Anthony’s openness to the Good News. They discussed everything from sin and miracles to the reason for Jesus’s coming and the necessity of the cross. Opening the Bible to John’s Gospel and chapter three, Aurel recounted how Jesus explained to Nicodemus what it meant to be ‘born from above’.

After many weeks they prayed together, with Anthony repenting and asking for God’s forgiveness as he became a follower of Jesus. ‘I often thank God for giving our missionaries like Aurel so many excellent opportunities to share Jesus with Jewish people like Anthony. God is definitely saving Jewish people today!’ says Joseph Steinberg, CEO of International Mission to Jewish People.

Steinberg, also from a Jewish background, credits his coming to faith in Jesus to the efforts of a non-Jewish friend who, like Aurel, chose to make himself vulnerable for the sake of sharing the gospel with a Jewish person. It’s a choice he wishes more Christians would make.

An unreached people

With Jewish people living in all kinds of communities all across the world, Jewish mission is necessarily a global endeavour – a vital part of the world mission landscape. Yet it is often not seen as a priority by churches in the UK.

‘The fact is that fewer than one per cent of Jewish people around the world believe in Jesus, which makes them an unreached people group,’ says Steinberg, ‘but they are often not thought of in this way.’

He cites multiple reasons for this misperception: ‘Unfortunately, many Christians today don’t think about the fact that Jewish people need the gospel. Sometimes it’s presumed they have their own way to God. There’s also a lot of animosity towards Jewish people in general with antisemitic attacks against Jewish people rising exponentially each year.’

Other reasons people might choose not to share Jesus with Jewish people include distraction. ‘Some Christians get side-tracked with arguing over conflicting political or eschatological views, instead of getting on with sharing Jesus.

‘And of course, we have to face the fact that it can be scary or intimidating to share our faith with anyone, let alone Jewish people, many of whom are highly resistant to the gospel due to a history of the church being entwined with antisemitism.’

Steinberg admits that before coming to faith through the persistent loving witness of a Christian friend, he ‘despised Jesus for the suffering that Christians caused my people down through the ages’.

A clear call

Yet for Steinberg, and the rest of the staff of International Mission to Jewish People, the Bible doesn’t treat evangelism – particularly Jewish evangelism – as something optional. Rather, it is imperative.

Steinberg explains: ‘As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10, “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him… How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

‘The Bible says we should take the gospel to all people – including Jewish people – and that really should settle it. There is no option in the Bible for us to treat Jewish people as the great omission in the Great Commission, or skirt around the issue because of its controversial nature.’

He continues, ‘When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” who do we think he was talking to? Jewish people. And since it is only Jesus who can save anyone, we must remain committed to giving Jewish people the opportunity to hear about the Saviour, Jesus.’

God is at work

Though he doesn’t consider Jewish evangelism optional, Steinberg will concede it isn’t easy. ‘It takes time, patience, and so much prayer to see a Jewish person come to faith.’

Yet International Mission to Jewish People has seen a marked increase in Jewish people turning to Jesus and embracing him as the Messiah they have longed for – more, in fact, than since before the Second World War.

Steinberg explains, ‘Before the Holocaust, it was estimated there were over 100,000 Jewish Christians in Europe, but Hitler did not care about their faith – so almost all were murdered. Understandably, evangelism among Jewish people after World War 2 was difficult, but today, Jewish people have a growing interest in Jesus. The global uncertainty caused by Covid-19 as well as the invasion of Ukraine have led Jewish people to look for answers, for hope.

‘Since the start of the war in Ukraine, many Jewish people there have become refugees, including some of International Mission to Jewish People’s own missionaries. But we have seen over twenty Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus – many of whom were directly affected by the war and others from different parts of the world.

‘It is an exciting time to be praying for the salvation of Jewish people and sharing the gospel with them.’

Be on the watch

International Mission to Jewish People (formerly Christian Witness to Israel) was established in 1842, during a time when Christians’ passion for Jewish mission was high.

Steinberg is hoping to see another wave of people choosing to treat Jewish evangelism as a priority for prayerful support.

He says, ‘In Ezekiel 33:7, God says to the prophet, “Son of man, I have made you a Watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.”’

This verse has inspired the creation of a new resource, called Watchman. The Watchman programme invites people to pray daily for Jewish people to come to faith and for new Jewish believers who are being discipled.

Through Watchman communications, people discover stories of Jewish people whose lives are being transformed by the love and power of Jesus. They also learn how to better engage with the needs of Jewish seekers.

‘Jesus is saving Jewish people today but we need the church to stand with us so that we can reach more Jewish people,’ Steinberg says. ‘We hope that through Watchman, people will gain the courage and confidence to tell Jewish people about Jesus and stand with us in prayer too.’

For further information on the work of International Mission to Jewish People or to join the Watchman movement go to www.imjp.org.

If you would like a missionary to come to your church and encourage you with all that God is doing to bring Jewish people to Jesus, please call 01865 887830 or email info@imjp.org.

By Allen Moxham, Freelance writer, writing this article on behalf of International Mission to Jewish People.

A sower went out to sow his seed: The work of Farming Christian Link

Farming Christian Link (formerly the Farmers Christian Postal Service) was founded in 1934 by the Revd J. C. Williams, a Free Church Minister who lived at Tenterden, Kent.

In the summer of that year while out for a walk, he was caught in a thunderstorm and sought shelter in a farmhouse. Mr Williams entered into conversation with the farmer about what it meant to be a Christian and when he arrived home followed this up with a letter.

The farmer responded positively and asked Mr Williams to write similar letters to neighbouring farmers. In this simple way the Farmers Christian Postal Service was launched.

The list of farmers grew steadily, running into thousands. Hand-written letters were no longer practical and had to be duplicated.

Means of communication have changed dramatically since 1934. A website and email are now used alongside the conventional postal service. To reflect this, the name was changed to Farming Christian Link (FCL).

The purpose remains the same: to reach people in farming and rural communities with the good news of the gospel, pointing them to the only Saviour for sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Farming Christian Link is run and supported by Christian volunteers from evangelical churches throughout the UK, many of whom are involved in farming or have links with farming and rural activities.

The main aspect of the witness is at agricultural shows. Over recent years the Lord has blessed this witness with FCL having stands at forty-one shows in 2022. Even more are planned for 2023, from Cumbria in the north to Devon in the southwest, and into East Anglia and Lincolnshire in the east.

In 2022, over 27,000 gospel leaflets and Scripture text cards were distributed, as well as 6,000 children’s packs and 10,000 wristbands containing the words, Jesus said: ‘I am the Good Shepherd’.

Supporting the hundreds of gospel conversations, other free books and booklets were taken from a book table.

Through a partnership with Good News for Everyone (Formerly Gideons UK), over 18,000 New Testaments were distributed, with their members helping with the witness.

Requests for free literature are also received via the website, and a quarterly magazine for ladies called Christian Friend is mailed out to hundreds across the country.

Over the years God has been pleased to graciously save precious souls.

Please pray for the seed sown, the outreach planned for 2023, labourers in this harvest field, and that in all things God will be glorified.

By Bernard Hicks Secretary of Farming Christian Link.

Church order – it matters

Church order matters. The organisation of our churches is important. How your church handles the admission of new members, requests for baptism, admission to (and exclusion from) the Lord’s Supper, the appointment of church officers, and similar matters is vital to the life and growth of the church.

Is that putting it too high? Notice what Luke says in Acts, following his account of the appointment of the seven men to take care of the daily distribution of food to needy widows in the church in Jerusalem (Acts 6). He recounts how the seven were brought to the apostles, prayed for, and had hands laid on them. Then he says, ‘And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith’ (Acts 6:7).

Is there a connection here? Is Luke telling us that setting in place good order in the Jerusalem church had something to do with the growth that the church experienced? Yes, I believe that he is. John Stott comments, ‘As a direct result of the action of the apostles in delegating the social work… the word of God spread.’

David Peterson agrees, pointing out that verse 1 of the chapter also speaks of the ‘disciples… increasing in number’; verse 7 rounds off the section: ‘The satisfactory resolution of the conflict in the Jerusalem church made it possible for this ministry of the gospel to flourish and for church growth to take place even more rapidly.’

There is a clear connection between good church order and the progress of the gospel. At one level, this should be obvious. Any club or society that is properly organised is likely to be more effective than one that is chaotic. But there is more than simple efficiency at work here. The need for good church order is a constant note in Scripture.

Church officers are to be appointed and they are to have certain qualifications (Acts 14:23; 1 Timothy 3:1-13). Discipline is to be exercised within the church, so that gross sin and false teaching are excluded from the church (1 Corinthians 5:1-5; 1 John 2:19). The Lord’s Supper is to be administered in an orderly manner (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Worship also is to be orderly (1 Corinthians 14:26-40). Elders are to be obeyed but are not to be overbearing (Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 5:3).

These are clear instructions from the Lord. They are to be observed carefully in our churches. Neglect of them will do us no good; following them, we can expect by God’s grace to know the Lord’s help and blessing in church life.

Church order, no doubt, is a very difficult subject. Faithful believers have disagreed over the centuries about precisely how a church should be organised. Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and others all have different approaches. Personally, I believe that an elder-led, congregationalist, associational independency best represents biblical teaching, but that is a subject for another time.

My plea here is for us to take this subject seriously, to examine the Scriptures, to read what those who were more learned and wiser than us have written in the past, and prayerfully come to clear conclusions that we believe rest securely on biblical foundations. And then to seek to put them into practice, with wisdom and winsomeness.

By Robert Strivens, Robert was a solicitor in London and Brussels before training at London Seminary.

Building a life-affirming church culture: A challenge to pursue a biblical view of the dignity and worth of every human life

The date 24 June 2022 was a momentous one for which we should give thanks to God – wherever we live. That was the day when the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling. The biblical conviction that every human life has dignity (because all are created in the image of God) lies at the foundation of the life-affirming medical ethic which has shaped Western culture for 2,000 years.

That biblical ethic was attacked head-on when, in 1973, the US Supreme Court claimed that the US constitution provided a right to abortion. Their decision in the case of Roe v. Wade ruled that human lives located in the womb were not worthy of the protection that other human lives are entitled to.

Last year, after nearly fifty years, the ruling was overturned. The Supreme Court has rightly recognised that the US Constitution does not provide a right to abortion. Decisions about abortion law were handed back to State lawmakers.

Ever since 1973, those involved in the pro-life movement in the US (and in many other nations) have been educating, campaigning, caring for women with crisis pregnancies, offering post-abortion counselling, and more.

Their work has been driven by the conviction that the sanctity of human life does not rest on capacity or independence, which may be extinguished by sickness or age. It rests on the truth that all human life is made in the image of God. And it has been motivated by the desire to care for mothers – both lives matter!

In the US, pro-life pregnancy counselling centres serve 1.85 million people, and provide almost $267 million in free services (including 486,000 free ultrasounds, 1.3 million packs of nappies, and 2 million baby outfits) each year. They receive little to no government funding, whereas Planned Parenthood (a leading abortion provider) receives $618.1 million per year.

All those involved in such pro-life activity had cause to praise God on 24 June 2022. It unleashed a storm of political protest, as well as media vilification and violent attacks against pro-life centres across the US.

But far from being intimidated, many in the US and beyond resolved to do more to provide care for mothers and their children, more to inform and motivate a younger generation about the need to protect unborn human life, and more to argue the case that every person, born or unborn, should enjoy equal protection in law.

As we reflect on last summer’s historic moment, it presents an opportunity to consider how we can increasingly build a life-affirming culture in our own families and churches.

Praise God the giver of life and preach the biblical responsibility to protect life

God has given us a divinely-inspired praise manual, and as we sing Psalm 139 we acknowledge that he is the giver of life. ‘I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14).

Genesis 1:27 explains that human beings are distinct from the rest of creation as we bear the image of God. God’s moral law summarised in the Ten Commandments is a perfect expression of his moral character. The sixth commandment is, ‘You shall not murder.’

As J. R. Ling writes, ‘Protection of human life is a recurring theme in Scripture. Uniquely in the created order it is only the lives of human beings that enjoy this special protection. The Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), stands out as a great beacon to protect all innocent human life. “Innocent” here does not mean those “without sin”, but those ‘without harm’. Killing is permitted [in the Bible] in the cases of capital punishment, just wars and in self-defence, but killing of the innocent is strictly forbidden’ (When Does Human Life Begin?).

Supremely, Christians affirm the dignity of every human life because God himself, in Christ, became flesh. The Son of God was incarnate from the moment of conception. If Jesus Christ took on human life as a single cell, our life also begins at conception. God, the giver of life, demands that human life should be protected from conception to natural death.

Sadly, many church leaders are hesitant to preach on beginning of life issues. Some fear upsetting those who have undergone abortions; some see it as just a ‘woman’s issue’; others are uneasy that they are not fully informed on what is viewed as a complex debate.

But it’s not difficult to understand that human life begins when the mother’s egg is fertilized by the father’s sperm. Human life should be afforded protection from conception onward. There are many great resources which can be used, including stunning films depicting the wonder of foetal development. We should all be equipped to answer the misinformation put out by those who claim that abortion is a ‘human right’.

Care for mothers

Abortion harms baby and mother, and we are called to love our neighbours. This may involve offering care to mothers with crisis pregnancies.

Abortion is usually regarded as a woman’s choice, but one study indicated that 73.8% of women who had abortions felt pressured to do so, 58.3% said they had their abortion to make someone else happy, and nearly 30% said they feared losing their partner if they did not abort their child [G. Veith, Post Christian (Crossway 2020)]. Is your church indicating in some way where women with a crisis pregnancy can access help?

When pastors avoid speaking out on abortion for fear of offending women who have had abortions, it can compound the tragedy for those women who carry a hidden burden of guilt and shame, sometimes for decades.

Is there also clearly signposted access to confidential counselling where those who have had abortions can be offered the forgiveness, hope, and healing that is found in Christ?

See children as a blessing

Many today assume pregnancy is something to avoid, rather like a sexually-transmitted disease. Bearing children is seen as a barrier to equal rights for women. Babies become ‘the enemy’ and some claim it’s a ‘human right’ to kill them before they are born. Some radical environmentalists go so far as to claim that humans are a ‘plague’ on mother earth, and we should stop having children altogether.

But children are a blessing. God made man and woman ‘in his image’ with the wondrous capacity to create new life. As they become ‘one flesh’ in the marital union, they, in turn, may create a child in their own image (Genesis 5:1-3).

The conception of each child is a gift from God (Psalm 127; 128:3ff). He gives children as a heritage for their parents for succeeding generations (Psalm 127:3).

With the coming of Christ, we learn that human marriage is a temporary signpost to the eternal reality of the love of Christ for the church (Ephesians 5:31-32).

As Christian believers, we are called to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), and whether married or not, whether parents or not, we are to bear and nurture spiritual children. Those who are single (or married people unable to bear biological children) may be afforded greater capacity for such spiritual fruitfulness (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). But the New Testament also teaches us that parents are to bring their children up to know and honour the Lord (Ephesians 6:1-4; 1 Timothy 5:8; Titus 2:4).

So, we affirm the blessing of having children and the importance of parenthood as a calling, while also recognising that it is not the only blessing.

There is a shift in emphasis in the New Covenant, but the creation mandate (Genesis 1:28) is still to be fulfilled. Men and women have been made in the image of God and given stewardship of creation. Faithful family life is one means of moving creation toward its appointed end.

Understanding that life is a gift from God guards against excessive individualism and the tendency to treat children as possessions or property. Many Christians uncritically assimilate the current ‘contraceptive mentality’ which holds that we (not the Lord) are in control of when we have a child. It’s assumed couples can delay having children and then have a child exactly when they want.

Some imbibe the thinking that we have a ‘right to reproduce’ and a right to access artificial reproductive technologies (ARTS) when desired. There is often little awareness of the threat to unborn human life of some contraceptive methods and most ARTS. Some church leaders are reluctant to provide teaching on these matters. But those who realise at a later stage that they have, albeit unwittingly, engaged in procedures that led to the loss of human life, may then feel betrayed and wish they had been better informed.

Any contraceptive method which can act as abortifacients should be avoided (which includes most, if not all, types of hormonal contraception). Many Christians in good conscience believe that other means of contraception (e.g. barrier methods) may be used at some seasons to space out their family size.

Others disagree, believing that every act of conjugal union should be open to God’s gift of life. Such believers may use natural family planning (NFP), which never contracepts an act of marital union. Modern NFP methods (fertility awareness) are very different from what used to be known as the rhythm method. When used carefully they can be effective in spacing out family size.

The same fertility awareness methods are also helpful in dealing with infertility and they are ‘life-friendly’ in contrast to in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which involves the production of, and then the destruction of, ‘spare’ embryos.

Procreative stewardship ‘requires that children should be received as gifts from God that are entrusted into the care of parents’ (B. Waters) either by procreation or adoption.

Today, the medicalisation of procreation means that conception, gestation, birth, and parenting can be separated. This divides what God designed to go together. The global trade in gametes (sperm, eggs, embryos), as well as the availability of surrogacy, exploits many and treats babies like products to be bought and sold. People are not property.

But there is dignity afforded to adoption. Throughout the Bible, we see God’s heart for orphans, as well as examples of adoption. Throughout church history, Christians have been at the forefront of those willing to open hearts and homes to needy children. When considering adoption, it should be the needs and interest of the child that are paramount.

In our fallen world families break, but we should not deliberately create situations where children are deprived of a father or a mother. All too often, decisions related to artificial reproductive technologies are all about what are assumed to be adult rights. They minimise the child’s need to know and be cared for by their own parents.

Pray about the need to defend life

This is a spiritual battle. We look to God for help. As we pray, individually, in families, and as local churches, we lament for those lives lost to abortion.

In 2017, it was reckoned that there had been one billion babies killed by abortion worldwide in the past 100 years. When we reflect that every human life from conception is priceless in worth because made in the image of God, we tremble at the magnitude of that number.

We grieve for those mothers (and fathers and other family members) who have been hurt. We pray for those considering abortion. We pray for those involved in performing abortions (and we can be encouraged by testimonies of those who have seen the horror of what they were doing). We intercede for those involved in the health services who may be put under pressure to engage in abortions, even against their own conscience. We ask God to help lawmakers to do justice and protect the vulnerable. We pray for God to bring repentance.

As we pray, we may be moved to act. Do we know a mother who needs practical help? Is there a local pro-life group we could support? If not, pray about the possibility of initiating one. Is there a life-affirming pregnancy advice/support centre in our area? If not, pray about whether one could be established. Is there access to abortion recovery counselling in our area? Is there a way of making this more widely known to those who may need it? If not, pray about how this could be facilitated.

Are we well informed about policy decisions being made where we live? Do we use our rights as citizens to engage in the democratic process to protect life? Are we aware that a Western global elite has been pushing a radical pro-abortion agenda onto many nations?

Ensure all are treated with dignity

God is the giver of life. As followers of Christ, we know we are indeed ‘our brother’s keeper’, called to care for and defend fellow human beings. As well as the unborn, that includes those who are sick, elderly, frail, and have special needs.

Respect for every human life did not arise from the other world religions, or from secularism. It arose from the biblical conviction that God created man and woman in his own image, and that Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection forever confirmed the dignity, value, and worth of the human condition.

Today the uniqueness and dignity of human life is often either openly denied or subtly undermined. We are to bear witness to that foundational and wonderful biblical truth and, as God enables, live it out in practice.

By Dr Sharon James, Dr James is Social Policy Analyst for The Christian Institute.

COMMENT: A sad day, but the sadness has been a long time in the making

The decision by the Church of England Synod to approve the blessing of same-sex couples is yet another sad departure from scriptural truth by the Church of England. But it is just the latest symptom of a much older and more serious problem – the Church of England is a theologically compromised denomination.

Back in 1966, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott famously divided over the question of whether evangelicals should come out from the Church of England. For Lloyd-Jones it was unthinkable that evangelicals should be visibly united in the Anglican church with those who reject the gospel. Stott believed otherwise, and many were persuaded to stay, although some opted to leave.

This newspaper was established one year later, in 1967, partly to support those who were freshly arriving on the independent scene. Men who had left theologically mixed denominations had paid a high price for their commitment to the gospel, and we should not forget their costly sacrifice. Moreover, their contribution to non-conformist evangelical churches has been a rich one.

It has long been the position of this newspaper that evangelicals ought to leave theologically mixed denominations, although we accept that is more easily said than done. But non-conformists need to be consistent. We cannot call upon evangelicals to leave, while we ourselves enter into official gospel partnerships with those who remain within a church which calls evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

Would we send our men to train at Roman Catholic colleges? Would we enter into gospel partnerships with Roman Catholics? Would we take funding from Roman Catholic organisations? Would we attend Roman Catholic conferences? No, because the Roman church has a fundamentally different understanding of the gospel. How then can non-conformist churches be happy to have official links with those who remain in the Church of England?

Severing organisational links with those who opt to stay in the Church of England would have big ramifications for many independent evangelical churches. But truth matters. And standing for the truth often comes at a cost. For our part, let us be ready to welcome warmly evangelical Anglicans who bear the cost of putting loyalty to Christ first. There is great potential for a united gospel witness with those who have rejected pragmatism and compromise, constrained by the love of Christ.

GUEST COLUMN: Engaging cult members with the gospel

Have you ever tried sharing the gospel with a Jehovah’s Witness? How did you get on? Many Christians have told me how frustrating they found it. ‘It’s a waste of time,’ I’m told, ‘they just don’t listen!’ Or, ‘They know the Bible too well!’

Sharing the gospel with cult members is indeed hard work. There is no silver bullet speech you can memorise which will reduce any cult member to their knees in repentance. But there is hope, and accounts abound of those who have left cults to find true salvation in Christ.

To take the pressure off ourselves when speaking to cult members, we must recall that we cannot save anyone. Our job is to share the gospel, leaving room for the Holy Spirit to convict people of their sin and need of Jesus.

Our part is to share truth in such a way that, as the cult member leaves our doorstep, they will ‘hobble’ because we have put a stone in their shoe – in other words, something to think about which is not easy to forget.

Perhaps the first problem we have is that we often don’t have a plan. Cult members usually catch us unaware and unprepared. I would suggest that we prepare just one thing, one topic that we feel comfortable sharing with the next cult member we encounter. Moreover, here are three simple techniques that can be utilised next time you hear that knock at the door.

Questions

Questions are always effective. Some cult groups (especially Jehovah’s Witnesses) are programmed to answer questions, but be aware that they are well trained to answer many questions posed by Christians. What we need to do is to ask a question that they are not prepared for, that they do not have a ‘set’ answer for.

Here is an example: ‘What must I do to be saved?’ First suggest a scenario in which you only have three minutes to live, then ask the question. Push them for an answer before you ‘die’. Afterwards point them to the thief on the cross and ask them what he did, highlighting how he turned to Jesus in his final moments.

Have them read Acts 16:25-34, where the Philippian jailer asks, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ Point to the answer given in Scripture: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’

Testimony

When cult members knock on your door, greet them with a smile and seek to build bridges. You can tell them how much you love the Bible and enjoy talking about God. Agree that you will give them a couple of minutes to share their message if they will allow you to share something with them afterwards. When your turn comes, share your testimony.

Emphasise all the things that you have that they don’t: knowing your sins are forgiven because of Christ’s sacrifice; having assurance of salvation because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Having peace with God now, not because of anything you have done, but because of all that Jesus did.

After sharing your testimony, ask them to share their story. They usually have very little to say, because they do not have a living relationship with God.

Scripture

Sharing Bible verses with those who claim to hold to the Bible is important. We must exercise care though, for these groups are familiar with many of the verses Christians tend to share, and they will spin them to suit their own doctrines.

Here are a couple of good verses to share with Mormons and JWs. Mormons believe that there are potentially millions of gods. In opposition to this, we can read from Isaiah 43:10, ‘You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.’

A telling verse to share with JWs is John 20:28. Even in their own Bible version (the New World Translation), it testifies powerfully to Jesus’s deity: ‘Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”’ This verse is very tricky for JWs because they have been told that Jesus is not God, yet here Thomas clearly declares Jesus to be such. Point out the context and show them that Jesus accepted what Thomas said.

You may have only time to share one verse before the cult member moves on, but a ‘stone in the shoe’, a ‘word in season’ may just prove to be the first step for someone away from a cult and towards new life in Christ.

By Tony Brown, Speaker for Reachout Trust and member of Sunbridge Road Mission, Bradford.

THINKING IT THROUGH: Confessions then and now: Do we need creeds and confessions?

My subject this month: Confessions of Faith – summaries of Christian teaching adopted by a church or group of churches as an official statement of what they believe. We tend to use the phrase confessions if they’re long statements of twenty, thirty, forty, pages. We tend to use the word creeds if they’re short statements, just a page or two. But the two terms really mean the same thing: summaries of what we confess and believe. And we can also include catechisms: summaries where the doctrines are set in question and answer form.

Here are two quotes. One of them is from a well-known Bible-teacher, Dr G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945). He wrote this:

No man who is living in true fellowship with God will consent to be mastered mentally by any creed that ever yet was prepared for him. The proportion in which a man knows the high life of fellowship with God, is the proportion in which he knows that no creed his brother may write for him, no creed he may write for himself, can be final. No man or company of men, no Church living in true fellowship with God will consent that its policy be stereotyped…

Evidently, Dr Morgan had little respect for creeds and confessions.

Here’s my second quotation. This is Benjamin Warfield, another great evangelical Bible teacher who lived through almost the same period as Campbell Morgan. His dates are 1851 to 1921. This is what he wrote:

He who wishes to grow strong in his religious life, let him, I say, next to the Bible, feed himself on the great Creeds of the Church. There is a force of religious inspiration in them which you will seek in vain elsewhere. And this for good reasons. First, because it is ever true that it is by the truth that sanctification is wrought. And next, because the truth is set forth in these Creeds with a clearness and richness with which it is set forth nowhere else.

He calls them the ‘compressed and weighted utterances of the Christian heart’ and goes on to say that the great creeds and confessions ‘have in them more food for your spiritual life – are “more directly, richly and evangelically devotional” – than any other book, apart from the Bible, in existence...’ The Reformed creeds, he goes on to say, are ‘charged with blessing to those who will read and meditate on their rich deposit of religious truth...’

For Campbell Morgan the ‘high life of fellowship with God’ is incompatible with submission to creeds and confessions. For Benjamin Warfield the great creeds and confessions are the richest and most powerful devotional reading you’ll ever find. Well, whom do you agree with? Are you a Christian in the mould of Campbell Morgan or a Christian who stands with Benjamin Warfield? Or are you somewhere in between?

Growing up in a Campbell Morgan world

I grew up in a Campbell Morgan world, a world without creeds or confessions. I don’t suppose I had ever heard of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed until I was in my late teens. As far as I know, I never heard them read or sat with a congregation which recited them together in public worship. I’d never seen a copy of the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the 1689 Confession.

If Campbell Morgan were right, there shouldn’t have been a Christian on the planet who had a higher life of fellowship with God than myself – I’d certainly never been mastered by any written creed! I was blissfully ignorant that such things even existed.

The sort of churches I went to tended to be very suspicious of theology or doctrine. I heard it very often. ‘We don’t need theology: we just believe the Bible.’ Many of the preachers I heard were proud of the fact that they hadn’t had any theological training. ‘I don’t need theologians to tell me what to believe: I just preach what the Bible says.’ And so it’s not surprising that they had no time for creeds and confessions.

I can remember an episode from my late teens. I was talking with the pastor of one church and I asked whether there was any written summary of what the church believed. He looked at me rather disapprovingly and said, ‘No, we would never accept such a thing, we just preach the Bible...’

An unwritten creed

That church – like many other churches – boasted that it didn’t have any list of doctrines by which it was bound. What I came to realise as time went by was that it did have a very definite list of doctrines. The list was just never written down. But the church did have doctrines that it insisted on. If you wanted to be accepted in that church you had to hold those doctrines.

The church held to the doctrine that the Bible was God’s Word and that it was true. It held to the doctrine that man was sinful and needed to be saved. It held to the doctrine that Jesus was the Son of God. It held to the doctrine that Jesus died for the sins of every human being without exception. It held to the doctrine that to be saved a person must pray a prayer accepting Christ. It held to the doctrine that every human being has free will and can accept or refuse salvation. It held to the doctrine that there’s going to be a secret rapture, and then a period of tribulation, and then another public coming of Christ, and then a thousand-year earthly kingdom. These were the fixed doctrines of that church.

If anybody had come to the church and had preached anything that contradicted these doctrines, he wouldn’t have been invited back. If anybody who attended the church had started lending round books that taught anything different, he would have been very firmly told he couldn’t do it. The church did have a completely fixed system of doctrine. But it was simply one that the pastor had drawn up without even realising it, off his own bat. It was simply a summary of what he believed.

Writing off the theologians of the past

Because he had already written off all the theologians of the past, he couldn’t even compare his system of doctrine with what other Christians have taught. He had no idea whether what he was saying was what Christians have believed down through the centuries. He simply took it for granted that everything he believed was what the Bible taught. He assumed that all real Christians had always believed the same things he believed. He had nothing to measure his own system of doctrine against.

You can see how terribly vulnerable a church like that was. By saying ‘We don’t need to bother with doctrines and theology and confessions of faith’, the church members were really agreeing to treat their pastor as infallible. They accepted that his interpretation of the Bible must simply be right at every point.

That was the thing I realised back then when I was struggling with these things. The question isn’t whether a church should have a confession of faith or not. Every church does have a confession of faith: a list of the things that the church believes. Either there’s a written list or an unwritten list. The only question is whether the confession of faith they have is a good one or not: whether the doctrines they stand for are based on sound interpretation of the Bible; whether their system of doctrine is balanced; whether it’s clear and precise; whether it’s well-expressed.

Unlikely to do a better job

And I began to realise that it’s very unlikely that the pastor or leaders of any local church are going to do a better job, working out their system of faith all on their own, than all the churches and Bible-teachers down through the centuries who have drawn up the great creeds and confessions.

Let’s imagine a pastor who’s preaching about Jesus. He wants to make clear who Jesus is. But he’s determined not to consult what anybody else has said. He insists he’s not going to be bound by any creed. He’s just going to preach what he can see in the Bible. Well, I hope he’ll see some things clearly. I hope he sees clearly the truth that Jesus is indeed God’s Son. And I hope he sees clearly that Jesus is indeed truly human. One man with an open Bible – even when all he has is an English translation – can glimpse great and glorious things.

But is that man, on his own, likely to come to the same depth and fullness of understanding as the 318 Holy Fathers who gathered at Nicaea in 325 AD and spent months searching together the Word of God? And then the 150 Fathers who gathered at Constantinople?

These were the men who formulated the Nicene creed in its different forms. They had lived through a time when the doctrine of the Person of Christ was under attack from every quarter; they had wrestled with all sorts of deviations and heresies. They had had to search every verse of the New Testament, every shade of meaning. And finally gathered in those great councils, as Christians and churches all over the world prayed that God would give them help, they had drawn up a form of words that they were determined would be exact and balanced.

Then, in 451 AD, the Council of Chalcedon was summoned. Leaders of churches from West and East – more than 520 in all – gathered and took up the work, examined new and even subtler heresies that had emerged since the earlier council. Finally, building on the earlier creeds, they drew up the Creed of Chalcedon. Has that pastor really nothing to learn from all the work they put in together?

We might just learn something

I’m not denying that that one pastor with his AV or ESV open in front of him may have real insight into the Word of God. I’m not denying that the Bible and only the Bible has ultimate authority.

But don’t you think that our friend might just learn something by listening to the hundreds of men who prayed and studied and debated and searched together to discover exactly what the Bible teaches about the Person of Christ? Don’t you think that a church might be enriched by learning not just from their pastor but from what all those men working together set out as vitally important?

Isn’t there just a tad of arrogance when Christians say, ‘We need no creed, no confession, we can go it alone... we can safely ignore all the work of the men whom God has raised up in the past’?

God himself gave clear summaries of the truth

But does the Bible itself give us any encouragement to draw up and use statements of faith, creeds, confessions? I believe so. The Bible itself makes plain that God’s people need concise, clear summaries of key truths. We find such summaries in the Old Testament, given by God to his people:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

God gave the Israelites hundreds of detailed, exact commands for every situation. But those hundreds of commands he condensed down to ten commands which everyone could learn, which could become the centre of national life. They were written on tablets of stone.

But then even those ten commands he reduced to two sentences. ‘The LORD our God the LORD is one. You shall love him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.’ What a marvellous summary of what the Israelites must believe and do! Every Israelite had to memorise those two sentences, pass them on to their children, bind them on hand and forehead, write them on their doorposts. It was the first great confession of faith. Pious Jews still recite it daily.

New Testament times

In New Testament times, Jewish culture required that teachers shaped their teaching into a set form of words which could be passed on from generation to generation. That was the way the rabbis taught in Jesus’s time – men like Hillel, Shammai, Gamaliel. They presented their teaching in clear, memorable forms so that their disciples could memorise it. There was no place for vague or wordy comments: everything had to be as pointed and concise as possible. And the rabbi would repeat the teaching in the set words over and over until his pupils had memorised it.

Some of those pupils would go on to become teachers, rabbis themselves. And then what was their task? It was to pass on the same teaching, in the same words, to the next generation. Maybe they would add something extra. Maybe they would modify some statement. Maybe they would adapt the wording a little. But basically they passed on the same teaching in the same words from one generation to the next.

The blocks of materials passed on by the rabbis were known as the traditions. Each generation would receive the traditions from the past generation and deliver them to the next. Those were the two key words used to describe this chain of teaching – to receive and to deliver. You received the set block of teaching from your predecessors; you delivered – passed it on – to your successors in turn.

The approach of the apostles

It is clear from the New Testament that the apostles adopted just the same approach as the Jewish rabbis before them. They still talked about receiving and delivering traditions from one generation to the next. Paul says things like this: ‘We command you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us’ (2 Thessalonians 3:6).

Anyone with a Jewish background would have understand straightaway what that meant. During the short time Paul was in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-10) he had taught his converts a block of material. They had received the tradition; they were supposed to memorise it, act on it, and then deliver it to others.

You have the same idea in 1 Corinthians 11:2: ‘Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you...’ Again Paul has delivered to them fixed traditions: blocks of teaching in set words. He commends them because they have maintained those traditions. You get just the same idea in lots of other places in Paul’s letters.

Paul’s patterns of instruction

Of course, not all Paul’s teaching was done in this way. He exhorted churches in a spontaneous way; he proclaimed the truth; he discussed things and responded to questions. But he still made use of the Jewish pattern of instruction. He taught the key facts of the Christian faith in set forms which he called the traditions. The hearers were expected to memorise them and to be able to reproduce them at a later stage. The ‘pattern of the sound words’ (2 Timothy 1:13) was delivered and received.

Let me show you some examples in the New Testament of the blocks of teaching that were passed on in a set form. Take 1 Corinthians 11:23: ‘For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you’. And then Paul goes on to tell the story of the last supper. He has received that story from the Lord. He doesn’t mean that the Lord directly revealed it to him from heaven. He means that he received it by a chain that went right back to the Lord himself.

The disciples who were there in the upper room with the Lord delivered what they heard and saw in a set form to others; they received it and then delivered it to others in their turn. Paul had received it either from the first disciples or from others who had received it from them. And then Paul delivered – passed on – to the Corinthians what he himself had received.

That’s why Paul’s account of the Last Supper is so close in its wording to the accounts in the Gospels. Paul doesn’t feel free to deviate from the set wording which had been passed down. Wherever people told the story of the Last Supper, they told it in a set form of words which had been passed down from Jesus through the apostles to all the different churches.

Received and delivered

You find the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they received the gospel. ‘Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received...’ (v. 1). Paul uses the same technical word. It means that the gospel was delivered to them in a fixed form. Paul reminds them that it’s important that they hold on to the message exactly as he preached it to them: ‘...in which you stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preached to you...’ (v. 2).

And then in verse 3 he lays out the precise words that he used. He introduces them in this way: ‘I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received...’ He’s very definite, isn’t he? He says that he received the truth from others; he insists he delivered it to the Corinthians unchanged.

Yes, the gospel dawned on Paul when the glory of Jesus was revealed to him on the road to Damascus, but the precise words in which he passed that gospel on to the church in Corinth were words he received from others.

What were they? ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures... he was buried... he rose again according to the Scriptures.... he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve...than to five hundred brothers...’ And so on. Paul didn’t invent this list. He passed on the tradition he received.

An agreed form of words

Who first drew up this little summary of the key facts of the gospel? Was it the twelve together? Was it James when he became the leader of the church in Jerusalem? We don’t know. All we know is that it was agreed that this was the set form of words to be used from generation to generation to teach the facts about Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Even Paul the inspired apostle used that set form of words to teach the Corinthian church. He didn’t have to improvise. He had received this perfect summary, clear, crisp, rhythmical, easy to memorise. He could deliver it to the next generation. All he needed to do was to make one addition: ‘Last of all, he appeared to me also...’ (v. 8). Paul brings the tradition right up to date by adding the story of his own encounter with the risen Christ.

Other New Testament examples

You’ve got lots of other examples in the New Testament letters of clear, crisp summary statements which were passed on from one preacher to another. Here are two examples:

‘...concerning God’s Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord... ’ (Romans 1:3-4).

‘Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel’ (2 Timothy 2:8). Why does Paul start with the word ‘remember’? Because the words that follow are words that Timothy had already memorised. It’s a one sentence summary of Paul’s gospel, which he expected others to remember.

In 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, Paul quotes four sayings. Clearly they were already in circulation before Paul quoted them and thus made them part of Holy Scripture. He declares them to be faithful – trustworthy. He says they are ‘deserving of full acceptance’. They deserved to be known and used by believers everywhere.

‘The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners...’ (1 Timothy 1:15).

‘The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.’ (1 Timothy 3:1).

‘...being justified by grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy...’ (Titus 3:7-8).

‘The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him we shall live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful...’ (2 Timothy 2:11-12). Every Christian could memorise that little four line summary of God’s promises.

Christians need exact summaries of key truths

So you can see how keen the apostles were to draw up clear, concise summaries of Christian truth – basic facts about Jesus’s life and death, statements of basic Christian doctrines. They passed them on to the churches. The churches were expected to know them and then to pass them on to the next generation. They were told they must guard them, uphold them, and teach them.

Christians need exact summaries of key truths. They need to have them in a set form which people can learn and teach. Otherwise Paul and the other apostles wouldn’t have produced such summaries in their day. That’s the biblical basis for preparing and using creeds, confessions, catechisms.

That’s all for this month! Next month, God willing, we can think about the confessions that have been written since Bible times, and how we can make use of them.

All Bible quotations in this article are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers © 2001.

This article is adapted from an address given at the God’s Glory Our Joy conference.

By Stephen Rees, Pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport.

A WALK WITH MR O: In all good conscience

Mr O, I very much need to talk to you about my conscience.

Well, that’s a pretty big subject. What do you know so far? And what is driving this sense of urgency?

I know that there is something inside me that tells me what is right and wrong and urges me to do right. I know that when I disobey it I feel guilty, and when I obey it I get a sense of relief. I get what we call ‘a clear conscience’.

All that sounds healthy. So where’s your problem?

I know from the Bible that my conscience can’t be a perfect judge. Sin has affected it, just as it has affected every other part of human nature. Seeing that it is obviously imperfect, how do I know when I should obey it and when I shouldn’t?

Let me be blunt. You must never disobey your conscience. Not ever. Not even once. In his great defence at the Diet of Worms Martin Luther rightly said, ‘To act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.’ He knew, for example, that the apostle Paul had told Timothy that by failing to keep a good conscience we run the risk of abandoning the Christian faith altogether. That is because a constantly rejected conscience dies, and all hope of godliness dies with it.

That’s strong stuff, Mr O. But I still don’t understand. My conscience is not the Word of God. It is not infallible. So how can it be so very wrong to sometimes disobey it?

It’s true that our conscience is not the Word of God. But it is the gift of God, and in his Word he requires us to inform it and teach it, so that what it says is entirely in line with that Word. That is why Luther, in the same speech, says that his conscience is ‘taken captive by God’s Word’.

I think I am beginning to get it. My conscience needs to be programmed. If it is not programmed correctly, it will malfunction and mislead me.

Yes, exactly. That is why in the New Testament we meet Christians who are ‘weak’. Their consciences forbid them to do all sorts of things which are perfectly wholesome and godly – things which they are entirely free to enjoy. They can’t understand their fellow-Christians who pursue those liberties. They know that if they themselves did those things they would violate their consciences, and therefore sin.

So if my conscience works overtime, I am ‘weak’?

That’s the word the Bible uses. It also talks about those who are ‘strong’. They are believers whose consciences are better programmed and therefore more in line with God’s Word. As they study the Bible these Christians see that God’s way is to give us a minimum of law and a maximum of liberty. We are free to do anything as long as we are doing it prayerfully, seeking to please the Lord, and not going against his revealed will.

And, of course, it is the Word of God which reveals what brings the Lord pleasure. But does anyone ever get it exactly right?

No, and that is something we must always bear in mind. It’s possible to have a clear conscience and, at the same time, to be doing the wrong thing. That is why we must submissively expose our minds to Scripture throughout our lives.

And doesn’t the Bible say something about restricting my liberty out of love for others? For example, if my Christian friend would violate his conscience by drinking any form of alcohol, aren’t I expected to steer clear of beer and wine?

Thank you for reminding me about that. The New Testament says a lot about this, although the issue there was about eating meat which had previously been offered to idols. It tells me that I don’t have to restrict my liberty just because somebody else’s conscience is limiting theirs. The only person I have to please is Christ. However, Christ is not pleased when my example actually results in a brother or sister acting against their conscience and ruining themselves. Nothing that I do should ever lead astray someone for whom Christ died.

Stuart Olyott, is an actively retired minister and conference speaker. He preaches most Sunday mornings at Caergwrle Evangelical Church.

A SHRINK THINKS... God paints behind the wardrobes

There is a room at home I use for my academic work (and writing these articles for ET!) which we also use for guests. So along with a bed, we installed two large wardrobes. It was a great effort to build and fit these, and then we quickly filled them up with so much stuff there is little space for guests’ items!

Shortly after this, and thus exhibiting bad planning, we decided to redecorate. Once I’d begun painting I realised I needed to paint behind these wardrobes. I couldn’t face emptying and moving and then reinstalling them. After all, who would ever know the walls weren’t repainted there?

Of course God would know. But I realised that he would have painted behind the wardrobes because he is so generous and delights in his handwork in a way I fail to do.

Consider the cosmos. At night we can look up at the amazing array of stars and, if we have dark enough skies, be even more amazed at the vast number and the beautiful patterns from which ancients derived their constellations. We might take a telescope and penetrate further and find even more stars and wonder how many there are.

Then we would be even more amazed if we accessed images from the Hubble space telescope. We find that many stars are in fact galaxies, so that each ‘star’ contains millions of stars. And we find much more than stars, don’t we?

We discover stunningly beautiful and vast multi-coloured clouds of dust and gas we call nebulae. We discover collapsing stars and expanding stars and blackholes and supernovae. We find that the further we look with ever more powerful telescopes the more stars and other such wonders there are. They seem unending.

But why are they all there? After all, until recently no human eye had ever seen them. No one had gazed on the beauty of the Crab Nebula. Our ancestors were blind to their existence. Perhaps angels could enjoy them, but not man.

They are there because God enjoys creating, because he is an extravagant Creator who creates so much more than the bare minimum necessary. He is not stingy and sparing in his creation. I would have put up enough stars to be enjoyed by man on earth, but none beyond the range of human eyes. After all, who would look? But God paints behind the wardrobes.

Or think of the vast ocean depths. In the warmer surface waters God has again made a vast and stunning variety of creatures, hasn’t he? All kinds of seaweeds and starfish and anemones. Beautiful reefs of corals populated by fish of bewildering shapes and colours.

Human beings have long been able to enjoy such generous provision. And we have been able to explore out into the oceans and explore where we find larger fish and whales and octopuses and so on. But the deep, dark ocean depths have long remained impenetrable. And they would be empty anyway, wouldn’t they? Why would God bother to form creatures there?

Yet just because he is such an extravagant God who enjoys his creative work, we now find using special submarines that even these ocean depths are populated by weird and wonderful creatures with enormous eyes and huge mouths full of jagged teeth, and creatures with no eyes at all hoovering up the falling detritus from the waters above them.

You can think of other examples too, where God has shown such ‘profligacy’, can’t you? Pretty flowers strewn across high mountain pastures where humans rarely tread, or flowers growing on tops of rainforests beyond normal human sight. They come and go unseen by man.

There are stalactites and stalagmites and limestone curtains growing in many vast and unpenetrated caverns. There are snowflakes, each so exquisite and beautiful and unique, falling and then melting away in vast numbers in places human beings never go.

But it is in salvation that we see most clearly the extravagance of our God. As Samuel Davies wrote: ‘Great God of wonders! All thy ways are matchless, godlike, and divine, but the fair glories of thy grace more godlike and unrivalled shine.’

God was, of course, under no obligation to save anyone. He could simply have demonstrated his justice by condemning each and every human being to hell. But he freely chose to save – and not just a few! A few would have sufficed to demonstrate his grace, but he chose a vast number, more than the sand on the seashore, more than that vast multitude of stars whose number (to our eyes) gets ever larger.

Truly he is an extravagant God. And did he conceive and deliver a bare minimum salvation? Of course not. He isn’t like that. He is not a stingy God. He could have shown his grace by simply pardoning us and restoring us to innocence and giving us the opportunity like Adam of attaining everlasting righteousness.

But praise God he did not! He justified us freely forever. More than that, he reconciled us to himself. We who had been enemies were established in peaceful relationships with him as friends.

More even than that, he decided to adopt us into his own family. He has made each and every Christian not only a friend but a son of God, so that the eternal Son himself is not ashamed to name us as his brothers. And as his sons he has stored up an inheritance in heaven for us.

Wow, what must that consist of, gifted to us by such an abundantly extravagant and inventive God who does not stint in his favours, who is not miserly in his giving, who paints behind the wardrobes.

Alan Thomas, Professor and Consultant in Psychiatry. Elder at Newcastle Reformed Evangelical Church.

CRUNCH POINTS: The trend of being nice

How should Christians respond to the current trend of being nice, winsome, and moderate?

Your choice of words sounds like you have loaded the question, so let’s pause and think about what you might mean. Nice is opposed to nasty – it usually means being agreeable, pleasant, acceptable. Winsome usually indicates someone or something which is charming, which attracts rather than repels. To be moderate often means to be a middle-of-the-road runner, extreme and excessive in nothing, comfortably average.

The modern world has tried to reduce Christianity to a kind of spineless religious niceness, where winsomeness consists in telling people what they want to hear (or, at least, not saying what they don’t want to hear), and moderation consists in holding nothing too strongly, certainly not in forcing your distasteful opinions on others (‘It’s not nice, dear!’).

Notably, none of these words or senses are used in the Bible (in the way in which I think you use them) of disciples of Jesus Christ – even moderation is opposed more to indulgence than to distinctiveness. Are there, then, Christian equivalents? Not quite! Think of a characteristic catalogue of Christian virtue: ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’ (Galatians 5:22-23).

Those words all pack an ethical punch, they are all defined by God in relation to him and to others, and they give the life and labour of the Christian man or woman some clean lines and crisp colours. But they all stand out, sometimes strikingly, even starkly, in a world that is full of vagueness and darkness.

Real Christian character, real Christian living, real Christian speech, has far more definition and substance than the words, ‘nice’, ‘winsome’, and ‘moderate’ are usually allowed to communicate. Christian character is bright and shining, bringing the savour of Christ; Christian living is pungent and distinctive; Christian speech is crisp, clear, and clean, full of the truth of Christ, spoken with a love that is unashamed in relation to God, and committed to the wellbeing of our fellow creatures so that we are willing to risk offence rather than abandon them to hell.

Only Satan loves blurred lines and vague shadows. Even Paul’s encouragement in 1 Corinthians 9 to be all things to all men that we might by all means win some (not winsome!) is an exhortation to be ready to suspend our proper liberties as Christians for the sake of those to whom we speak, not a suggestion that we should blunt our edges and round off our corners to avoid causing offence.

Please don’t misunderstand me: the gospel itself is an offence to the unconverted person, and we need not and should not load it with our own offensiveness, with rudeness, disdain, cruelty, or hypocrisy. However, if we interpret our calling in the world as bending over backward to avoid ever upsetting anyone, treading on their toes, offending their sensibilities (therefore manipulating our Christianity into a socially acceptable package), or accepting the privatisation of our faith, then we cannot be faithful to Christ.

A crucified Christ was folly to the Greeks and a scandal to the Jews, repugnant to every wrong-thinking man, but it was and is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.

So don’t be merely nice, be distinctively and definitely and wonderfully Christlike. Be winsome in a gospel sense, letting your speech be spiritually sweet and savoury and salty, for only in this way will you present to guilty sinners a Christ worth having. Be something much more than merely moderate: be convinced, committed, and compelling.

Christ is not going to be well served by social and spiritual blancmanges; his followers have some heavenly flavour about them. Those distinctive notes of truth known and lived are not palatable to the people of this world until the Holy Spirit awakens their spiritual tastebuds to discern between foul poison and sweet medicine.

If you would like an answer to a crunch question, please email crunchpoints@evangelical-times.org. We cannot guarantee an answer to every question.

By Jeremy Walker, Jeremy is the pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church in Crawley.

NEWS

News in brief

LSE will drop ‘Easter break’

The London School of Economics has been accused of being ‘ashamed’ of Britain’s Christian history. From next year, Christmas break will be ‘winter break’, Lent Term will be ‘winter term’, and Easter break will be ‘spring break’. The LSE says it wants to ‘better reflect the international nature of our community’.

Silence on marriage

Government ministers must break ‘their embarrassing silence’ to show that marriage matters, says Harry Benson, research director at the Marriage Foundation. He said, ‘It’s been a decade since we’ve heard a cabinet minister publicly support marriage, despite most of them embracing it with open arms in their private lives.’

Young teens in churches

Churches with the largest numbers of under-16s tend to be those that hold to a biblical view of human sexual ethics, according to research conducted by campaign group, Christian Concern. The findings, say the researchers, refute claims that churches need to liberalise their beliefs on LGBT issues to attract young people.

Welsh sex swap plans

The Welsh government has followed Scotland in announcing its intention to make it much easier for gender-confused people to change their legal sex. Its ‘LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales’ expresses a desire for Wales to become ‘the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe’. But the Welsh government may not have the power to make the changes.

Lloyd-Jones lecture given

Last December, Dr Peter Williams (Principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge) delivered London Seminary’s annual Martyn Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture. Dr Williams spoke on the effectiveness of Christ as a preacher. He provided in-depth analysis of the parable of the prodigal son and identified common features of Jesus’s preaching, including a call to hear, use of questions, and repetition.

Highland church gets new building

Last December, the Free Church (Continuing) congregation of Poolewe and Aultbea in Wester Ross enjoyed their first gathering at a new church building. The congregation had been without a permanent church building since January 2000. The new location took three years to construct and can accommodate fifty worshippers.

Salisbury graduates

In January, a graduation service was held at Emmanuel Church, Salisbury, for two students from Salisbury Reformed Seminary. The service was chaired by Revd Malcolm Watts. Graduates James Buss and Justin Beach spoke warmly of their studies, before preaching was given by Philip Hopkins (Biddenden). The occasion also witnessed the beginning of studies for four additional men.

New CEO for MAF

In February, Donovan Palmer became new Chief Executive of Mission Aviation Fellowship. He was formerly Chief Strategy Officer for anti-slavery NGO Hope For Justice. He has worked for Mercy Ships and was UK National Director of youth charity YWAM. MAF is a Christian mission organisation that uses aircraft to reach remote peoples with aid.

Germans thirst for creationist Bible teaching

Creation scientist Andy McIntosh has given thanks for the opportunity to speak with Christian communities in Germany as part of the Kreatikon conferences. He said, ‘The hunger of these believers for good Bible teaching was palpable and their desire to reach out and share the gospel was so refreshing.

US Megachurch members take marriage pledge

The First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, has asked members to sign a new statement affirming traditional marriage – with the understanding that those who do not agree to sign will no longer be part of the megachurch. The statement affirms Christian beliefs that marriage is only between one man and one woman.

Aid plea for Tigray

Barnabas Aid has called for support for the humanitarian crisis in the Tigray region in Ethiopia. A conflict is currently on hold, thanks to a ceasefire, allowing food and medication to get through. But the need is greater than the aid that is coming in. An estimated 600,000 civilians have so far died.

$1bn ad blitz to ‘promote Jesus’

Donors in the US have put up to 1 billion USD on a new campaign to promote Jesus Christ. The ‘He Gets Us’ campaign has already started appearing online, via billboards, and over airwaves across America, with the goal of presenting Jesus in a new light to Millennials and Gen Z, and is targeting the Super Bowl.

Evangelicals react as Church of England backs plans to bless same-sex couples

The Church of England has voted in favour of plans to bless gay unions, but has stopped short of allowing same-sex marriages to take place in the church.

The church has also set up a commission to examine whether gender-neutral pronouns should be used to describe God.

Evangelicals have reacted with dismay, with one non-conformist leader calling for an end to gospel partnerships with those who remain in the Church of England.

The Church of England Evangelical Council, established in 1960 by John Stott, issued a statement saying, ‘We are deeply saddened and profoundly grieved that General Synod has given a green light to the proposals put forward by the House of Bishops.

‘The Church of England now appears set on a course of action that rejects our historic and biblical understanding of sex and marriage, by departing from the apostolic faith we are called to uphold.

‘This decision will be extremely distressing for evangelicals in this country today, as they consider the impact of the decision on their ministry and as they continue to contend for Jesus in their local contexts.’

But the Council fell short of calling for evangelicals to withdraw from the Church, instead saying, ‘We believe that putting in place new imaginative structures, “good differentiation”, is the only way we are going to be able to reach a settled outcome, that maintains the highest degree of unity possible within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.’

Paul Eddy, a west Oxfordshire vicar and Convenor of the Anglican Orthodox group, said, ‘The LGBTI+ lobby in the church won’t be satisfied until the whole CofE officially opts-in for gay marriage.

‘So they will target orthodox clergy in their individual parishes, putting local and media pressure on them to bless gay unions against their conscience. And the bishops? They will hang their clergy out to dry.’

The Christian Institute’s Ciarán Kelly said, ‘The truth of Scripture has been ditched in favour of the culture of the day. Sexual relationships are only to be enjoyed within the marriage bond between one man and one woman.

‘The Church’s Legal Office claims these proposals do not constitute a change in doctrine as the prayers do not bless an act but rather bless people. This fools no one.

‘Faithful Christians inside and outside the Church of England must continue to speak the truth about God’s wonderful gift of real marriage; a gift that speaks of Christ’s relationship with his Church.’

Peter Ladd, from CARE, said, ‘There can be no doubt that the events do mark a radical shift in the history of the Church of England.’

He added, ‘Among evangelicals, the focus now will turn to what happens next; there was much talk of a “mediated settlement” (including from the Archbishop of York) involving some level of split, and many will feel like a red line has been crossed.’

Some evangelicals in the Church of England have signalled their intentions to leave, but others have made statements which could be interpreted as heading for compromise.

Ed Shaw is the pastor of Emmanuel City Centre Church in Bristol, and also director of Living Out – an organisation that helps Christians who experience same-sex temptation live a biblical, faithful life.

During the debate in the Church of England Synod, he said to one lesbian campaigner, ‘I look forward to the day that you (Jayne Ozanne) can get married in your local church, but according to my conscience it would need to be in a different part of the church.’

The vote in the Church of England sparked a strong response from Anglicans overseas. The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) is a worldwide fellowship of orthodox Anglican Provinces and Dioceses.

In a statement, the organisation said, ‘The Church cannot “bless” in God’s name the union of same-sex partnered individuals, much less sexual relationships between same-sex persons which in God’s Word He declares to be sinful.’ The group also questioned Justin Welby’s ‘fitness to lead what is still a largely orthodox world-wide Communion.’

Writing on his personal blog, evangelical non-conformist church leader Stephen Kneale (Pastor, Oldham Bethel Church) said the Church of England’s vote will have implications for independent churches too.

‘The Church of England has now embraced a false gospel,’ he wrote. ‘Those who choose to remain in the Church of England are, therefore, necessarily accepting that false gospel as, minimally, a legitimate expression of orthodoxy amongst believers.’

He added, ‘Those who continue to subscribe to it will be formally associating themselves with a gospel that cannot and will not save. They are minimally willing to remain in fellowship, and call brothers, those who affirm it. They are submitting to authorities who are officially permitting and encouraging it.’

He wrote, ‘What Evangelical and Conservative Anglicans in the Church of England do is, of course, a matter for them. But it bears saying – and I appreciate people will not want to hear it – what nonconformists do from here is similarly for us.’

Kneale continued, ‘We are unlikely to see people leaving in droves. But, as I say, that is for Church of England folk. But as a nonconformist, I think the only course of action is, if we do not see clear and evident moves out fairly quickly, to begin withdrawing fellowship ourselves.

‘If Church of England ministers do not see that they are compromised by remaining and do not make moves to formally withdraw, nonconformity will necessarily begin to withdraw from you.’

‘The ramifications of such a move will be big,’ Kneale writes. ‘They will take in Gospel Partnerships, perhaps excellent local church partnerships, it will impact the colleges we attend, it will (for some of us) impact the funding we might access.’

See Comment

By Mike Judge, Editor

Government vows to protect churches from ban on conversion practices

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has promised that the government’s proposed ban on ‘conversion practices’ will not criminalise the ordinary work of churches and parenting.

In a letter to MPs, the minister restated the government’s commitment to pre-legislative scrutiny in this parliamentary session.

She said the government would help make sure church leaders, teachers, and parents ‘continue to be able to have exploratory conversations with people about their sexual orientation, sex or gender identity’. And she was clear that ‘the freedom to express the teachings of any religion, as well as everyday religious practice, will not be affected by the ban’.

However, the government’s understanding of the ‘ordinary work of churches’ and ‘everyday religious practices’ may be quite different from reality.

Religious freedom campaign group Let Us Pray will continue to keep the pressure on, saying they are ready to go to court if necessary.

Mother accuses school of ‘indoctrination’ over education as her 4-year-0ld is forced to take part in gay pride event

A Christian mother who claims a school forced her 4-year-old child to take part in a gay pride event has had her case heard in court.

Izzy Montague, 38, said she was told by the headteacher of Heavers Farm Primary School in South Norwood, southeast London, that her son could not opt out of the event in June 2018.

Montague raised concerns, but she was banned from the school because the headteacher, Susan Papas, said staff ‘did not feel safe around her’.

Montague further claims her son was picked on by staff and unjustly put in detention after she tried to get him excused from the LGBT event.

The court also heard that Montague attended a meeting with the headteacher, Papas, on 19 September 2018 in which the headteacher’s daughter wore a T-shirt with the slogan, ‘Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you could just be quiet?’

Montague, who is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, said ahead of the court hearing, ‘I wasn’t even trying to stop the Pride event. I just wanted my child to receive an education, rather than indoctrination.

‘After I complained about my young child being forced to take part in an event that goes against our Christian beliefs, the school’s attitude towards me changed completely. Other parents were afraid to speak up because of how the school treated me.

‘It was like being bullied. They stopped treating me like any other parent but were antagonistic towards me.

‘I believe that they retaliated against me by unreasonably excluding me from the premises, victimising my child and not taking my safeguarding concerns seriously.

‘I am taking this stand to raise awareness amongst parents as to what is happening in our primary schools. I do not want other parents to go through what I have in the months and years ahead.’

Andrea Williams, CEO of the Christian Legal Centre, said, ‘This case epitomises the chaos we can expect to see in the coming years in our schools and is another example of the “totalitolerance” that has become so prevalent in our society.

‘Those who preach tolerance and diversity the loudest do not appear to be interested in practising it.

‘The treatment of parents at Heavers Farm Primary School represents some of the most chilling breaches of parental rights I have ever seen in my many years of working on educational issues.

‘Education is always a partnership between the school and parents, but the school’s actions showed disrespect, dismissiveness and hostility towards these parents.

‘A particular agenda is being forced onto children inside the school gates and parents are being given no means to ensure that their children are being taught in line with their religious and philosophical beliefs.’

The court hearing was ongoing when this article was written.

Charges dropped against woman prosecuted for praying near to an abortion clinic, but legal clarification is still needed from the courts

A woman who was facing prosecution in criminal court for praying near the site of an abortion clinic has had the charges against her dropped.

But her legal situation remains unclear, and others have been arrested in similar circumstances, including a Roman Catholic priest, Father Sean Gough.

Religious liberty legal advocacy group ADF UK is seeking clarity from the courts regarding such cases.

A hearing was scheduled to take place at Birmingham Magistrates Court on 16 February, after this edition of ET went to print.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was first arrested by police on 6 December 2022 for silently praying in her head in the vicinity of an abortion clinic.

A ‘buffer zone’ which bans all protests, including prayer, was in operation around the area of the clinic.

Vaughan-Spruce was charged by police with ‘protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users’, even though the clinic was closed at the time.

Her case was due to be heard on 2 February, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced the charges were being dropped due to lack of evidence.

However, the CPS also said the charges ‘may well start again’ in the near future subject to a further evidential review.

This uncertainty has caused Vaughan-Spruce’s lawyers to seek a hearing in the Magistrates Court in the hopes of achieving some legal clarity.

Meanwhile, Roman Catholic priest Fr Sean Gough has been arrested – also in Birmingham – for silently holding a ‘praying for free speech’ sign near a closed abortion facility.

A further charge relates to his car, parked within the same area, which has on it a small bumper sticker saying, ‘unborn lives matter’. The sticker has been on the priest’s car for some time.

In a separate case, Adam Smith-Connor was fined for breaching a Bournemouth censorship zone. All three cases are being defended by ADF UK.

Jeremiah Igunnubole, Legal Counsel for ADF UK, said, ‘It is crucial that the Court issue a clear legal verdict in the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce.’

He added, ‘The reality is that every person should have their freedom to think and pray respected without running the risk of prosecution under vaguely worded and entirely disproportionate censorship zones.’

Sturgeon resigns following criticism for her ‘omnishambles’ transgender laws

Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as Scottish first minister, after finding herself embroiled in a storm of controversy over her government’s plans to liberalise transgender laws.

Not only did the UK government vow to veto the new laws, but the issue became highly divisive in Scotland itself.

There was widespread alarm over the case of Isla Bryson, who was convicted of raping two women but was initially sent to an all-female prison when he claimed to be transgender.

Sturgeon’s critics said the Bryson case showed why it was so dangerous to have ‘self-identification’ laws that don’t require any medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Before she resigned, Sturgeon repeatedly refused to say whether Bryson is a man or a woman, despite Bryson’s estranged wife saying his change of gender ‘was a sham’.

Scotland’s prison service abandoned Nicola Sturgeon’s self-identification policy for new prisoners, saying it would base decisions on where to send them entirely on their biological sex.

The Bryson case hit Sturgeon hard, with a YouGov survey for the Sunday Times suggesting that her personal approval rating slid into negative territory, while the Scottish National Party dropped six percentage points.

Even transgender activists were against Sturgeon. Writing in The Spectator, Debbie Hayton says Nicola Sturgeon’s bungled gender crusade has undermined trans rights.

‘The omnishambles playing out in Scottish politics makes one thing clear: Nicola Sturgeon has no clue what she’s doing when it comes to trans rights,’ Hayton wrote.

Sturgeon, who resigned on 15 February, denied that the transgender prisoners row was the final straw. She said she will ‘leave other people to judge’ her record.

Minister says teachers under pressure to be silent about progressive ideology

Teachers in England and Wales are being put under pressure at school to keep quiet about the reality of biological sex, a senior government minister has claimed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Mail on Sunday, the minister said teaching staff have complained that schools are preventing them from following the government’s legal advice in the absence of clear guidance from the Department for Education (DfE).

Last year, the then attorney general Suella Braverman made it clear that teachers could, for example, stop a male child who identifies as a trans girl from using girls’ changing rooms or taking part in single-sex sporting activities.

But staff have told Whitehall that their own school governors and senior staff have prevented them from carrying out that guidance.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the senior minister said teachers who ‘want to do more to push the stop button when they see children questioning their gender’, feel they are ‘being abandoned’.

A spokesman for Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told the Mail on Sunday that new guidance will be issued later this year, but campaigners say the DfE’s delay means schools further risk damaging children and stifling teachers.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Safe Schools Alliance said, ‘We get many emails from teachers who are also struggling and are fearful for their jobs if they complain.’

In Scotland, guidance has been in place since 2021 that backs children as young as four declaring their own gender in school and allows parents to be kept uninformed about the curriculum.

Grace Baptist Assembly to debate current pressures on churches

‘Triumphing in tribulation’ will be the theme of this year’s Grace Baptist Assembly, featuring a panel of pastors debating the current pressures on Christians and local churches.

The Assembly – to be held in Swanwick, Derbyshire, 16–18 May – will consider the reality that many churches are small and evangelism is hard and slow.

In addition to those challenges, Christians are increasingly facing conflict in schools, universities, workplaces, and often in their own families.

The Assembly will seek to address the questions of how we arrived at this situation, where we go from here, and what we need to be ready for.

During the three-day event, a panel of pastors will discuss and debate the issues, and there will be time for comment and questions from the floor.

Last year’s Assembly included a panel discussion about the covid lockdown, and the panel format proved to be a very stimulating and welcome addition to the Assembly programme.

The speakers for this year’s Assembly are Oliver Allmand-Smith (Ramsbottom); Jonathan Bayes (Stanton Lees); Ian Jemmet (Bethersden); Andrew King (Highbury); Stephen Rees (Stockport); and Paul Smith (Broadstairs).

The Assembly will also include a report session, to give an opportunity to share information about real, local church life. This part of the Assembly is often a very moving and encouraging time.

The purpose of the Assembly is to help and strengthen local churches. Places are still available. For booking, payment, and discount information, please see the Assembly website: gracebaptistassembly.org.uk

Obituary: Eric Alexander (1932–2023)

On 13 January, Eric J. Alexander passed from this life into the nearer presence of the God he loved and served for over seventy years.

When Martyn Lloyd-Jones retired from Westminster Chapel in 1968, a church member said, ‘Doctor, you will surely miss preaching.’ The Doctor replied with, ‘I have never lived to preach.’ Such was Eric Alexander. Paul’s literal words in Philippians 1:21 were his life’s motto: ‘For me to live, Christ; to die, gain.’

Eric’s life was eternally changed when his older brother Tom returned from national service a converted man. Eric had longed to study medicine, but now he felt a higher claim on his life. He abandoned his place in the Faculty of Medicine in Glasgow and transferred to the Faculty of Divinity.

For the next forty years, Eric ministered the Word of God with unusual grace and power, first as an assistant in St David’s Knightswood (1957-61), then in Newmilns, Ayrshire (1962-77), and finally in St George’s Tron, Glasgow (1977-97).

Eric’s preaching was noted for exegetical care, expositional clarity, searching application, and above all for its Christ-centred focus.

The Lord greatly used Eric beyond Scotland: regularly at the Keswick Convention; and in the USA, often in tandem with James Boice of Tenth Presbyterian in Philadelphia.

Eric’s life manifested ‘a sacred weight of character’ and adorned the gospel he preached. His life and ministry were enriched by his beloved wife Greta and his children Jennifer and Ronald.

He was a prince among preachers, but even better, he was a true man of God. Our loss, which is very great, is heaven’s gain.

By Revd Ian Hamilton

North Gate Hall, Oxford, becomes new home for Presbyterian church

Oxford Evangelical Presbyterian Church (OEPC) has secured a long-term tenancy for the North Gate Hall on St Michael’s Street in central Oxford.

Constructed for the United Free Methodist Church in 1871, the building was subsequently used by the Oxford Intercollegiate Christian Union (OICCU) for more than 50 years.

It was in the basement of the North Gate Hall, in the OICCU library, that a recently converted J. I. Packer first discovered the works of John Owen. This discovery had a profoundly formative influence on his life and theology and, through him, a whole generation of evangelical pastors and writers.

After being sold to Oxford City Council in 1989, the building was used as a community centre and as a base for a local homeless charity (the Gatehouse) until 2011, when it was converted into a branch of the national restaurant chain, Bill’s.

OEPC was planted in 2018 and has grown under God’s blessing over the past four years while meeting at St Luke’s Chapel and the Friends Meeting House in the centre of the city.

Discussions about a possible move to the North Gate Hall began in 2020, culminating in planning permission for the change of use in late 2022.

OEPC plan to restore the building to its original form and function with a galleried chapel space at street level and a schoolroom and other ancillary rooms beneath.

‘This is an amazing answer to prayer for a very ordinary church,’ says Andy Young, who has led OEPC since its inception. ‘In a world where so many historic church buildings are being converted into restaurants, we’re excited to see this restaurant being converted back into a church.

‘The North Gate Hall was used by God so significantly in the lives of so many people in the past. We’re praying it can contribute again to making Jesus known in the centre of this incredibly strategic global city.’

By Andy Young

Poisoned but preserved – Pierre Viret and other Reformers surveyed at three-day conference held in Teddington church

‘250 years of Reformed and Puritan theology: From Pierre Viret to Griffith Jones’ was the title of a three-day conference at Christ Church, Teddington, last October.

Paul Karageorgis spoke first on ‘The Reformed Patriarch of Constantinople: Cyril Lucaris’. He explained how Lucaris (1572–1638) became evangelical in his faith, and how the machinations of the Jesuits prevented a reformation in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

An excellent and enlightening second lecture was delivered by Dr Ian Densham. His subject was, ‘Pierre Viret: Pastor, preacher, theologian’. Viret, like Cyril Lucaris, is virtually unknown to English-speaking evangelicals.

He, too, was persecuted by the Jesuits and other Roman Catholic authorities. Viret was attacked with a sword and scarred for life. He was also poisoned, with life-long, debilitating effects upon his body. Despite all the opposition, he continued to preach the gospel wherever he could.

On day two, Dr Geoff Thomas spoke on ‘The Puritans and Depression’. Regarding this lecture, Revd Dominic Stockford said, ‘Geoff Thomas once again showed his gift of telling you what someone else said, making it inspiring, and giving it freshness.’ It was a very helpful paper, especially as depression is such a relevant issue for many today.

Geoff was followed by Revd John Harding, who spoke on ‘Griffith Jones, an heir of Puritanism’. Dr Harding showed that Griffith Jones (1684–1761), despite having a depressive disposition, was able to achieve great things by God’s grace. Jones was faithful to the Reformed doctrine of the Church of England as it then was, and is best known as the forerunner of the 18th-century Evangelical Awakening.

Providentially coming under the wing of a wealthy evangelical, Jones was able to establish an ingenious system of circulating schools. The schools moved from village to village across Wales, teaching the poor people, young and old, to read Welsh. This enabled them to read the Bibles which Jones obtained from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

On the third day, Dr Oliver Rice gave an excellent exposition of Richard Baxter’s The Saints’ Everlasting Rest. This was another heart-warming and inspiring message, challenging us to learn from Baxter and also lifting our hearts heavenwards in worship of our great God for the home he has prepared for his saints.

The final lecture was by Geoff Thomas on Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices. This was a fitting conclusion to a profitable and inspiring three days of conference.

By Paul Karageorgis

World Religions and Cults Conference held in London

Last November, Answers in Genesis hosted a World Religions and Cults Conference (WRCC) at Homerton Baptist Church in East London.

65 people of various ages and ethnicities attended. This was the fourth WRCC in 2022, which have helped equip some 250 people nationwide.

These conferences have been something different for AiG and much needed, especially now that less than half of England and Wales’ population identify as Christian (according to the 2021 census).

With that in mind, it is even more important that Christians know how to defend their faith in respect to other religions and cults which claim to be Christian.

The number of actual born-again believers in England and Wales is much lower than the census indicates. Therefore, the following sessions from our WRCCs are of increasing value to such believers:

‘Defending the deity of Christ’ from AiG-UK’s Executive Director, Simon Turpin. This is arguably the key area and subject of most contention with other religions and cults.

In ‘Answering atheism’, Professor Andy McIntosh looked at science and philosophy to answer the questions, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is my worth?’

‘Engaging with Muslims’ was led by John Harris. He was born and raised in Lebanon, and is now a Director of Living Waters Europe. He looked at the history of Islam and passages in the Quran which undermine a Muslim’s own beliefs about the Bible.

‘Engaging with cults’ was given by Tony Brown of Reachout Trust. He used the simple acrostic ‘OPEN THE DOOR’ to encourage us to speak with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons who come knocking or stand on our street corners.

These conferences occurred following the high interest in AiG’s World Religions and Cults book series (three volumes) and subsequent conference in the USA (of which all 17 sessions are available on DVD from www.answersingenesis.co.uk or on www.answers.tv).

As the books and DVDs sold out several times here in the UK, hosting our own version of the conference soon became a discussion point.

During lockdown, AiG-UK hosted a live version of the conference online (which reached hundreds of people around the world and is also available on answers.tv) and decided to take it on the road soon thereafter, with conferences in Derbyshire, Oxford, and Bradford before this one in London.

If your church would be interested in hosting such a conference in 2023 or beyond, please contact me at neil@answersingenesis.org.uk.

By Neil Seeds

Unashamed of the gospel – Banner Borders Conference held in Carlisle

In times of difficulty, holding to the central truths of God’s revelation becomes a matter of existential importance. A church faithfully meeting the challenges of the 21st century must be founded upon the Word of God and the gospel of Christ.

It was fitting, then, that the Banner of Truth Borders Conference last autumn homed in on what must be the beating heart of our vision: God’s saving work through his incarnate Son.

Over two days, we took time to hear the Bible taught, renew fellowship, and of course acquire some discounted Banner of Truth books from the stall!

Paul Yeulett (Grove Chapel, London) opened our time with a call to contend for the whole counsel of God. The Lord’s revelation in Scripture must be our constant and comprehensive source as we strive for faithfulness.

David Pfeiffer (Whaddon Road Presbyterian Church) took us to Romans, and Paul’s grounds for being unashamed of the gospel.

Saturday morning saw David Campbell (North Preston Evangelical Church) give a poignant account of 19th-century missionary to Mongolia, James Gilmour. James endured years of lonely toil among the Buddhist Mongols, seeing very little fruit during his lifetime.

Paul Yeulett’s second session focused on one of Gilmour’s contemporaries, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and in particular his battle for gospel truth in what became known as the ‘Downgrade Controversy’.

David Pfeiffer closed our time with an extended meditation on the person of Jesus Christ, grounded in Colossians 1:13-23.

By Joshua Kellard

Induction service welcomes Andrew Hill to Hayes Town Chapel, London

We at Hayes Town Chapel give thanks to God for the provision of a new minister, Revd Dr Andrew Hill, six years after Revd Gwynne Evans retired from the pastorate.

The induction took place last November before a large congregation of members and visitors. The service was led by Gwynne, who is still on the eldership.

The sermon was given by Paul Levy (IPC, Ealing), who expounded the exhortation to Timothy to ‘preach the word’.

For the actual induction, Gwynne and Ron Hollands (secretary) were joined on the platform by Tom Brand (EFCC Ministry Director) and Mike Hitchings (Bethel Baptist Church, Farnham).

Ron and Andrew gave a history of the circumstances that led to the call. Andrew served with the RAF as a Squadron Leader for 22 years before answering the call to ministry, beginning with training at London Seminary.

His first pastorate was at Highgate Road Chapel for six years. He then became Executive Director of SASRA for the last eight years.

During his time at London Seminary, Andrew was assigned to the Chapel to gain some practical experience. Thus, an association began which, after a number of years has now blossomed in this way.

The Chapel members stood to affirm their commitment to prayerfully support Andrew and Jo in their work among us. We already very much appreciate their presence, their gifts, and the experience they bring.

After the service about 160 sat down to enjoy a fine meal and further fellowship.

By John Lodge

Sixty ministers gather for prayer and ministry at EFCC conference

The Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches welcomed around 60 of its ministers to its annual Ministers’ Prayer Conference last November. Meeting at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, our topic was ‘Gospel ministry: life and leadership’.

Each morning men gathered in small groups for prayer, then after breakfast attendees came together for news from and prayer for specific churches and situations.

The blessing and encouragement of this emphasis on prayer was evident in the warmth of fellowship and spiritual conversation throughout each day.

James Muldoon (Carey Baptist Church, Reading) preached three excellent and moving messages on ministerial work in the context of suffering, conflict, and marriage.

On conflict, James took us to the book of Esther and Haman’s plot against the Jews. James demonstrated how the spiritual battle touches down on earth as Christians suffer for their faith in three areas of conflict: the spiritual realm, the physical realm, and in the church herself.

Conflict is to be expected as Christians arouse the world’s hostility by seeking to put Christ first. Yet Satan remains in the last throes of his rebellion.

Conflict in the church is always uncomfortable, to say the least, but it can result in growth and blessing when Christians humbly submit together to the glorious will of God.

Neil Powell (Director of The London Project) explored approaches to evangelism in various church contexts over three sessions.

On Tuesday evening Tom Brand (EFCC Ministry Director) led a stimulating discussion on eldership in congregational churches with Matt Rees (St Briavels) and Chris Bennett (Hemel Hempstead). Tom also closed the conference providing some lessons from the ministry of Jonathan Edwards.

In the final meeting, prayers were offered for one minister about to retire, and for one minister about to be ordained. It was a joy to mark both the end of one faithful ministry and the beginning of another.

By Rob Childs

Australia: New transgender bill in Queensland set to allow 12-year-olds to swap their legal sex

Children aged as young as 12 will be permitted to change their legal sex under new laws proposed in Queensland, Australia.

The proposed ‘Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill’ has been called ‘irresponsible and dangerous’ by critics.

One of the bill’s critics is the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), which submitted its response to the bill.

The ACL has raised concerns that enabling people to self-identify will essentially allow people to legally falsify their birth certificate.

Writing a blog post on the ACL website, Rob Norman wrote, ‘The consequences of falsifying the facts surrounding the live birth of a person are far reaching and have serious consequences. Two glaring consequences are parental rights and women’s safety.’

The ACL has submitted a six-page response to the public consultation on the bill, which closed in January.

The bill was released by the Attorney General, Shannon Fentiman, on the last Parliamentary sitting day of 2022. It was subsequently referred to a committee, with a deadline of 11 January for public submissions.

According to Norman, this meant ‘it was timed for the least possible scrutiny. As the only Australian State with no House of Review, it is imperative that Queensland’s committee process be approached with integrity. The government knew this bill would be contentious.’

Introducing the bill to Parliament, Fentiman, who is also Minister for Women in Queensland, took aim at concerned feminist movements, stating, ‘some groups will try to cloak their transphobia in the guise of women’s safety.’

The proposals aim to remove protections which the Queensland government argued ‘unnecessarily medicalises the recognition of a person’s lived identity’.

But under the bill, children as young as 12 can get a court order to change their legal sex, as long as they have an ‘informed practitioner’ to assess them – which could be a school guidance officer.

Children aged 16–18 can change their legal sex with a supporting letter written by anyone 18 and above, as long as they have known them for a year.

The proposals also say anyone can declare their sex marker with no requirement for a medical statement from either a doctor or psychologist.

Professor Patrick Parkinson, Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland, told the Legal Affairs and Safety Committee that trans and non-binary are social or psychological identities, not medical conditions.

He said, ‘The bill is premised on the idea that we are born in the wrong body, or people could be born in the wrong body. There is actually not much evidence for that.’

US: March for Life rally descends on Washington

Thousands of pro-life supporters from across the US took to the streets in Washington, DC, as part of the annual March for Life.

It has been 50 years since the US Supreme Court legalised abortion in America in 1973, but in June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and gave individual states the power to continue to carry out abortions or to ban them.

Covering almost two miles in the capital, pro-life supporters held signs such as the one pictured, with campaigners highlighting that the child that is aborted is paying the price for someone else’s mistake.

In the Washington Examiner, President of March for Life Jeanne Mancini was quoted as saying, ‘This will be a day to celebrate the overturn of Roe, a momentous occasion, and then to talk about what’s next and build a culture of life in the United States.

‘The enthusiasm of the young people is contagious here today, and so my enthusiasm is strong.’

But within days of the event, which drew national attention, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it would be permitting abortion pills to be dispensed by pharmacies.

This came after US Vice-President Kamala Harris announced a presidential order instructing the government to push the distribution of mifepristone across the country.

Previously, the drug – which is used to kill a young developing foetus – had to be obtained directly from a doctor, or be prescribed via telemedicine and sent by post.

According to reports, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has been directed to consider publishing guidance for mothers, abortion providers, and pharmacies ‘who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone, no matter where they live’.

However, pharmacies will not be able to distribute the drug in pro-life states where abortion is banned or laws require that patients get the pills directly from their doctors.

This comes as medical critics across the globe, including the UK, have warned of the potential dangers to the mother of taking pills by post.

But the pressure to relax abortion laws is not confined to the US: in Ireland, more than a hundred medics have urged the government to reject pressure to remove its remaining legal protections for the unborn.

In a letter to the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, the 106 signatories emphasised that there was ‘no medical basis’ for scrapping the three-day reflection period before an abortion.

According to the Health Service Executive, there were 8,057 abortion consultations in 2020 and 6,577 abortions carried out.

Turkey/Syria: Christian charities on the ground helping earthquake victims

Christian charities and aid organisations have been quick to mobilise to help the millions of Turkish and Syrian people left homeless, injured, and bereaved following the earthquake in February.

The devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck south-eastern Turkey near the border with Syria in the early hours of 6 February, followed by several aftershocks, and another 7.7 magnitude quake hit as rescue workers attempted to get to survivors of the first one.

Christian group Samaritan’s Purse and its partners on the ground (pictured), were among the first international Christian agencies on the scene.

In a statement, Samaritan’s Purse said, ‘We are working through local partners on the ground to assess needs in the Kahramanmaraş region of southern Turkey near the border with Syria.’

It added, ‘Please join us in praying for so many suffering families and for our teams and partners on the ground serving them in Jesus’ name.’

Andrew Swanson, a missionary with many years of experience in the region said, ‘There is devastation everywhere. You have seen it on your screens. The scale is almost impossible to take in.’

Giving one example among many, Swanson said, ‘The young pastor and his wife from the church in Iskenderun have both been killed, leaving a son, Joel, aged nine. A traumatised orphan and a pastorless church will need your ongoing prayers.’

There are now more than 40,000 recorded deaths across the two countries, with the work to retrieve bodies still underway at the time of this edition of ET going to press.

But many of the poorest, most marginalised communities in Turkey – Kurdish people and Christians – are the least likely to be priorities for help from the increasingly Islamist government, Barnabas Fund has warned.

In an editorial, Barnabas Fund said, ‘Despite the fact that Turkey has been a secular state since 1928, the Christian community, now swollen by refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran and even Afghanistan, has continued to be treated as inferior to the Muslim majority.’

Even in 2021, American human rights organisations warned that Turkey was carrying out airstrikes in Christian-populated areas of Syria, despite the negotiated cease-fire in 2019.

At the time, Amy Austin Holmes, a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, noted that ‘Yazidis, Christians, and Kurds have fled in droves from the Turkish-occupied areas of Syria.’

US: Arkansas Governor to put limits on ‘drag story hour’ in public spaces

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is attempting to limit drag shows, drag queen storytime, and other ‘prurient’ events from ‘public spaces’ in a new bill which she says will protect children.

Arkansas Senate Bill 43 is aimed at placing restrictions on where drag performances can take place.

The bill’s primary sponsors, Sen. Gary Stubblefield and Rep. Mary Bentley, have said the bill aims to protect children from sexual content.

But the bill – which has seen some vocal criticism – has had to be toned down and amended several times from its original form, which had narrowed its focus on what is, and is not, drag.

It originally defined a drag performance as an event where a performer ‘exhibits a gender identity that is different from the performer’s gender assigned at birth’, and labelled any instances of drag as ‘adult-oriented performances’ and ‘adult nudity’.

But this was seen as potentially discriminating against an individual walking down the street, so the focus has now been amended to ‘restrict’ adult-only performances by definitions of what is deemed ‘nudity’ and ‘prurient’.

It has also been amended to define where such acts can take place (such as an adult bookstore), and to prevent minors (under 18s) from being admitted into attendance.

According to Huckabee Sanders, the bill will still help prevent children and infants from being taken to drag queen storytime performances, often held at local libraries.

However, according to The Washington Post, LGBT activists have claimed drag shows do not usually involve nudity or stripping, and should not be lumped together in the adult-oriented category.

The bill is the latest in a series of legislative changes being issued by the new governor – who was inaugurated in January – that aim to crack down on ideologies being forced into the curriculum.

In January, Sanders issued an executive order for the state to review education rules and policies to see if critical race theory or other topics that ‘indoctrinate students with ideologies’ have been promoted in schools across Arkansas.

Africa: Five Christian hospitals give much thanks for ‘timely’ PPE items

Christian hospitals in five African countries have given heartfelt thanks for a huge consignment of personal protective equipment (PPE), shipped by Barnabas Aid’s medical.gives programme.

Around 50 million PPE items worth approximately £25 million, were donated by the Irish government and delivered by Barnabas in partnership with historic charity Crown Agents.

According to one hospital in Zimbabwe, the medical staff had run out of all their masks and were almost out of gloves when the shipment arrived.

This meant Mount Hampden Rural Clinic, Mahonaland West Province, had no masks when they went to examine patients with all types of illnesses.

The five countries to receive the PPE, which included scrubs, masks, and gloves, were Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Global: List reveals the countries where persecution against Christians is worst

Religious freedom charity Open Doors has released its annual ‘World Watch List’, showing the countries where Christians suffer the worst persecution.

An Open Doors spokesperson said, ‘Overall, persecution has intensified against Christians across the world.

‘The number of Christians facing persecution and discrimination has remained approximately the same – 360 million, which is 1 in 7 Christians worldwide – but the level of persecution has worsened.’

North Korea remains at the top of the World Watch List, making it the place where Christians face the most persecution for following Jesus.

According to Open Doors, North Korea had a ‘persecution score’ of 98/100, which is the highest a country has ever received in 30 years of World Watch List research.

The other nine nations which make up the top ten worst offending countries are: Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

According to Open Doors, ‘Around the world, 5,621 Christians were killed for their faith last year. That’s approximately 15 a day.

‘Of these, 89 per cent were in Nigeria – a shocking 5,014 believers were murdered in the country where violence continues to escalate.’

REVIEWS

The StoryChanger

David Murray

Crossway

129 pages; £8.99

BUY

The StoryChanger is a short, well-written, attractively packaged introduction to the Christian faith. It assumes nothing and feels eminently suitable for seekers or those casually considering the Christian faith. The writing is engaging and feels very attuned to the broad Western culture in which we live. David Murray anticipates and addresses various reader responses, and each chapter ends with study questions and a very brief prayer.

The big idea of the book is that our lives are stories we are writing, but that true flourishing means being part of the story God is writing. This metaphor dominates the whole book – usually in a fresh and creative way, though occasionally the metaphor feels intrusive (the treatment of justification is a case in point), or a bit trite. By and large though, it is helpful and thought-provoking.

The ten brief chapters are loosely based around Ecclesiastes 1–2, Genesis 1–2, Genesis 3, John 4, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Romans 15, Psalm 66, Joshua 1, Hebrews 10:23-25, and Matthew 28:18-20, covering both the gospel and the rudiments of discipleship.

The book is full of illustrations, and almost every sentence feels crafted and memorable, perfect for our ‘soundbite’ age. Occasionally this gets too much, but in general it is a model of good communication, and as such is a challenge to those of us who teach.

There is also substantial content, and much of profit even for mature Christians – I took away a number of new insights both into the texts themselves, and how to communicate them. Woven through the book is David Murray’s own testimony, and this helps the book not to feel too slick or packaged.

This is a great book to offer to read with a non-Christian or a new Christian. I think it would resonate most with the younger generation.

Phil Heaps

Highbury (North London)t

Thomas Charles of Bala

John Aaron

Banner of Truth Trust

382 pages; £15.50

BUY

Thomas Charles was the pivot around which several significant developments took place, particularly in Wales.

John Aaron has mined Welsh and English material to produce a highly readable English biography. It makes for a personal, historical, and theological feast. Charles was involved in many noted undertakings such as the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, affordable Bibles for Wales (and the world), the writing of a major ‘Scriptural Dictionary’, and the theological development of Calvinistic Methodism. He also experienced revivals first-hand. Understandably, then, this account follows a general chronology but is structured thematically.

Several matters stand out. One is Charles’s positive and outward-looking disposition. Inheriting from Daniel Rowland and William Williams a strong evangelistic concern, Charles worked tremendously hard to see the gospel planted among all generations throughout Wales. His circulating and Sunday schools went a long way to making Wales highly literate in the 19th century. Charles was motivated by the glory of Christ and believed strongly in the providence of God, responding to needs as they arose and enabled to do so with marked wisdom. The detailed account of his courtship to Sally Jones is well worth the inclusion.

This account is warm, edifying, and highly quotable. It is a resource for preachers and teachers alike, and those interested in church history. The author, perhaps wisely, does not attempt to apply lessons for today. The book cover claims that the author ‘does not shrink from acknowledging both the strengths and weaknesses of his subject’, though the weaknesses are hard to find! Yet Aaron seems to avoid obvious hagiography.

Though not a quick read, it is well worth the effort (and the price tag): there is much here to benefit the reader. I would have liked to have read this 15 years ago!

Gareth Williams

Bala

10 Women Who Overcame Their Past

Dayspring MacLeod

Christian Focus

191 pages; £8.99

BUY

This may be a small book (191 pages), but the author manages to encapsulate a lot of helpful material in brief chapters.

The writer gives us cameo portraits of ten very different women in different eras who faced different challenges. The issues are dealt with in separate chapters (sexual sin and identity; difficult marriage and divorce; bereavement; singleness; overcoming with forgiveness; eating disorders; illness; false beliefs; self-righteousness and the fear of man).

Most of the women, whose lives leapt off the pages, are well-known, but not all. The author writes in a contemporary, readable style and I was pleased to see that alongside biblical texts, she points to other helpful resources. Some of the women speak directly to the reader, in their own voices; not so with the historical characters.

Short chapters and the questions section at the end of each chapter render the book an accessible source for group discussions or reading group material. Finding identity and freedom in Christ are themes that are explored in the book. This book is not full of hagiographies or false triumphalism; this I appreciated.

Sheila Stephen

Bridgend, South Wales

Luther and the Reformation

R. C. Sproul

Ligonier

113 pages; £7.99

BUY

Biographies on Luther are numerous, ranging from easy bitesize to in-depth and scholarly. So what makes this one different? Well, to begin with, this is almost two books in one. It starts with historical narrative but concludes with a definite emphasis on theology, in particular the great doctrine of justification by faith.

Chapters 1–6 take us from Luther’s birth to his momentous stand for the truth at the Diet of Worms in 1521. Sproul skilfully signposts the key turning points in Luther’s life. This is easy to follow and would suit a first-timer to Luther’s ‘life’ enhanced by additional little details picked up from Sproul’s many visits to the places cited. Sproul forcefully brings out the incredible struggle Luther faced as he went through this journey of faith. We get to feel we are actually walking with the man.

The next three chapters build on the historical foundation and focus on the heart of the Reformation, justification, looking at it from both Protestant and Catholic viewpoints. Sproul analyses the biblical teaching of justification in detail, taking in the linguistic, historical, and philosophical uses of the terms involved. It is a masterly analysis worth pursuing, both informative for new-comers and refreshing for those more familiar with the subject.

This book is perhaps most useful for those with some prior knowledge. The historical aspect is good, though at times did meander into anecdotes. The theological analysis was most helpful. A good read for anyone with an interest in Luther and the Reformation.

Stuart Fisher

Bournemouth

Sacrifice

Howard Guinness

Wakeman Trust

83 pages; £4.95

BUY

This is a re-publication under license from IVP of a booklet written by Howard Guinness in 1936. It enjoyed a wide circulation and influenced many young Christians of that period. A fifth and final edition appeared in 1960.

Sacrifice is an exhortation to a full and practical commitment to Jesus Christ, focusing on the use of money (advocating frugality, tithing, and self-denial), courtship and marriage (including helpful advice on choosing a life partner), personal discipline (in the use of our time, in the books we read and films we watch, and in guarding against laziness), and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

There is a chapter giving the author’s testimony, and an epilogue which is an illustration of personal sacrifice from World War I.

The publishers believe that there is a lack of teaching on personal dedication in today’s church and that this book will address that need. While not disagreeing with the analysis, I have serious doubts about the usefulness of this book for this new generation of believers.

First, the year 2022 is a different world from 1960. Second, this book rests on a suspect view of sanctification. In regard to the Christian life, Guinness states ‘Receive Christ . . . receive the Holy Spirit. Enthrone Christ . . . receive the fulness of the Holy Spirit.’ Although teaching that this enthroning initially occurs at conversion, Guinness encourages readers to prepare for a ‘fuller experience’ of the Spirit’s power for holiness through re-enthronement.

It may therefore have been wiser to write a new book based on a past publication rather than reissue something directly from the past.

Roger March

Wolverton

Remember The Sabbath Day

Several authors

DayOne

105 pages; £6.00

BUY

It is difficult to do justice to this book in a short review. Despite being only 105 pages, it is packed with information and exhortation concerning Sunday as the Christian day of rest and worship. There are seven chapters, each by a different author. The type is clear, the layout is modern, the text is very readable and Christ-centred. The chapters speak of a Day to Remember, to Observe, to Rest, to Believe, to Worship, and to Hope.

The book balances duty and delight in keeping one day in seven, the first day of the week, focused on the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between the true God and us. The content is well supported by relevant quotations from familiar writers such as Pink, Henry, Dabney, and others. A quote from Matthew Henry on page 99 captures the flavour of the book. ‘It is certain that God, after the creating of the world in six days, entered into his rest; and it is certain that Christ, when he had finished the work of our redemption, entered into his rest; and these were not only examples, but earnests, that believers shall enter into their rest…’

If you love the Lord, I would say, buy a few copies of the book to pass them on to Christian friends who do not understand about the Lord’s Day and to give them to those unconverted friends who wonder why you are so concerned to keep one day each week separate and sacred. This book has the answer, well-argued from Scripture and literary sources. A heading on page 42 declares, ‘It is a day commended and claimed by Christ.’

Roy Mohon

Stockton-on-Tees

Table of Contents

FEATURES

‘Non-directive’ preaching is no preaching at all

BBC Christians and other evangelical escapes

Jewish mission – not an option

A sower went out to sow his seed: The work of Farming Christian Link

Church order – it matters

Building a life-affirming church culture: A challenge to pursue a biblical view of the dignity and worth of every human life

COMMENT: A sad day, but the sadness has been a long time in the making

GUEST COLUMN: Engaging cult members with the gospel

THINKING IT THROUGH: Confessions then and now: Do we need creeds and confessions?

A WALK WITH MR O: In all good conscience

A SHRINK THINKS... God paints behind the wardrobes

CRUNCH POINTS: The trend of being nice

NEWS

News in brief

Evangelicals react as Church of England backs plans to bless same-sex couples

Government vows to protect churches from ban on conversion practices

Mother accuses school of ‘indoctrination’ over education as her 4-year-0ld is forced to take part in gay pride event

Charges dropped against woman prosecuted for praying near to an abortion clinic, but legal clarification is still needed from the courts

Sturgeon resigns following criticism for her ‘omnishambles’ transgender laws

Minister says teachers under pressure to be silent about progressive ideology

Grace Baptist Assembly to debate current pressures on churches

Obituary: Eric Alexander (1932–2023)

North Gate Hall, Oxford, becomes new home for Presbyterian church

Poisoned but preserved – Pierre Viret and other Reformers surveyed at three-day conference held in Teddington church

World Religions and Cults Conference held in London

Unashamed of the gospel – Banner Borders Conference held in Carlisle

Induction service welcomes Andrew Hill to Hayes Town Chapel, London

Sixty ministers gather for prayer and ministry at EFCC conference

Australia: New transgender bill in Queensland set to allow 12-year-olds to swap their legal sex

US: March for Life rally descends on Washington

Turkey/Syria: Christian charities on the ground helping earthquake victims

US: Arkansas Governor to put limits on ‘drag story hour’ in public spaces

Africa: Five Christian hospitals give much thanks for ‘timely’ PPE items

Global: List reveals the countries where persecution against Christians is worst

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