Monday 30 November 2009

Children who front Richard Dawkins' atheist ads are evangelicals -Times Online



"The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’s latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery he associates with religious baggage. With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the youngsters with broad grins seem to be the perfect advertisement for the new atheism being promoted by Professor Dawkins and the British Humanist Association.

Except that they are about as far from atheism as it is possible to be. The Times can reveal that Charlotte, 8, and Ollie, 7, are from one of the country’s most devout Christian families."


You don’t need me to tell you that when it comes to religion and philosophy Richard Dawkins is a complete doughnut of the first order. Now the dozy plum has come up with a poster advertising his ill-tempered dog-in-the-manger form of atheism featuring two happy, bouncing Christian children. I knew he was after our kids but I didn’t know he would go to these lengths.

The British Humanist Association, a church of the disillusioned who gather regularly around their grievances to blame a God who according to their own creed isn’t there, explained the campaign:

“The message is that the labelling of children by their parents’ religion fails to respect the rights of the child and their autonomy. We are saying that religions and philosophies — and ‘humanist’ is one of the labels we use on our poster — should not be foisted on or assumed of young children.”

So unconvinced are they of their worldview that they claim they won’t share it with their own children. It is so vacuous and meaningless that they have no intention of passing it on. Now that puts a different spin on the idea of ‘convictions’ doesn’t it? Put a gun to their head and surely they will cry, “Of course there’s a God! Always knew it.”

They betray the empty-headed nature of their arguments by apparently insisting that it is right for others to have a greater influence on our children than we do. Personally, I believe in the indoctrination of children and any parent with a firm view and an ounce of common sense will believe the same. We inculcate them with ideas of right and wrong, infuse them with ambition and drive and inspire them as best we can to live full and meaningful lives and these ideas are informed by what we believe.

If I believed there wasn’t a God I would press that view on my children to save them the heartache and disappointment of finding out for themselves after perhaps half a life of pointless devotion to a deity that doesn’t exist. By the same token, since I believe in God, I have done all I can to tell my children about him, to let them know he loves them and that the life of man is not solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short but  sociable, rich, charitable, elevating, purposeful and eternal.

There is an irony in Philip Pullman’s support for the campaign and his statement that, “It is absolutely right that we shouldn’t label children until they are old enough to decide for themselves.” He is a very successful children’s author who influences the minds of children around the world and takes every opportunity to promote his jaded atheism, surely in the knowledge that they are listening. It is an atheism that has little to do with Christianity but is informed by a gothic/medieval view of the church instilled in him by his peculiar catholic upbringing.

As to the support of Derren Brown for this campaign, here is a man who would rather go to enormous lengths to prove 2.6 billion Christians wrong than simply admit that the Christianity he grew up with doesn’t suit his homosexual lifestyle. It is truly tragic that men with such great skills and intelligence should prove such total numpties when it comes to even the most basic philosophical and religious principles. Dawkins for science by all means, Pullman for good fiction and Brown for great magic and entertainment but as to religion and philosophy I wouldn’t cross the street to hear what they have to say.

Children who front Richard Dawkins' atheist ads are evangelicals -Times Online

Friday 20 November 2009

Church Times - IBS-STL decides to ‘exit the business’

It is bad news when a major outlet of Christian publishing goes under. In the church people are already surviving on Christianity-lite thinking they are feasting without making it more difficult to obtain good Christian literature.

THE Bible Society has called for urgent consultation over the future of Christian bookshops, after Monday’s announcement by the Christian book distributor and Bible charity IBS-STL that it is to sell its UK operations. They include the 40 Wesley Owen bookshops.

The company said that financial problems, alongside supply and ser­-v­ice difficulties in its distribution and retail outlets, had led to a “decision to exit the business”, a statement said. STL, formerly Send the Light, merged with the International Bible Society (IBS) in 2007 to become one of the world’s biggest not-for-profit book distributors.

Church Times - IBS-STL decides to ‘exit the business’

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Benny Hinn Exclusive Interview

Benny Hinn gives an exclusive interview to ABC's Nightline, but don't worry, there's no danger of him saying anything that challenges your scepticism. What do you mean your not a sceptic? What sort of Christian doesn't ask questions? Oh, your sort, right. By the way, I can't help but wonder how Jesus' publicist would have handled this. I think Benny sacked his after this interview - or was it part of the gameplan? Lord, please don't let me turn into a conspiracy theorist.

Friday 13 November 2009

Education: Parents angry at evangelicals' charity scheme | Education | The Guardian

Shock! Horror! This is simply SCANDALOUS! Who would have thought an organisation called Samaritans Purse, the organisation behind a charitable initiative Operation Christmas Child, could have anything to do with Christianity? It beggars belief that this clandestine and subversive organisation should have got away with doing millions of dollars of charitable work every year without anyone realising it. Surely no respectable educational establishment would wish to be associated with something so evil as Christian charity!

But its alright, “Samaritans Purse insists it now makes clear in all its information that it is a Christian organisation.” Phew!

You know, if this wasn’t so tragically pathetic it would be funny.

Teacher union leaders are warning schools to vet the charities they support after complaints from parents about a scheme to send gifts to the developing world run by an evangelical Christian group.

Under Operation Christmas Child, schoolchildren are asked to fill a shoebox full of presents and wrap it up before the charity Samaritan's Purse distributes the boxes to children in Africa and eastern Europe. Last year 1.2m boxes were sent by children in the UK and the charity received £23.5m in voluntary donations…

Education: Parents angry at evangelicals' charity scheme | Education | The Guardian

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Latest News - Gospel for Asia UK

How would you feel if you were met with this threat? How strong is your faith and how much do you love Jesus? Please read this story and see how much Christians in India love him and what it costs them. Please pray for them.

“If you don't leave Jesus, we will come back on Sunday and burn you alive.”

Latest News - Gospel for Asia UK

Sunday 8 November 2009

An Open Letter to Sir Ian McKellan « Smoking Lizard Soapbox

A very wonderful open letter to Sir Ian McKellan who it seems has taken to tearing a page out of the Bible he finds in every hotel room in which he stays. It is a well reasoned response to this unwarranted act of vandalism and deliciously funny in its execution. You will not regret clicking through and reading the whole letter and it won’t take you long.

This message really should have come in the mail or to a private email address that can be forwarded. Regardless, please take this as my polite request for you to either cease and desist or change the nature of your Leviticus 18:22 protest concerning hotel Bibles. As I am a Christian who takes matters of faith seriously, I have no other teeth here than a polite request written in, I hope, inescapable logic and devastating wit.

I appreciate that to a gay man it must hurt that the instruction book for the dominant spirituality in the English-speaking world has words that baldly put, don’t like homosexuals. I also take the fact that you only tear out the offending page out of the hotel Bible as a sign of room to negotiate. Clearly, you approve of most of the rest of the Scripture in some fashion.

An Open Letter to Sir Ian McKellan « Smoking Lizard Soapbox

Thursday 5 November 2009

The Mormon Chapbook

On my other blog I discuss the importance of language in transmitting truth and the significant change in the way Mormons understand the Book of Mormon peoples. If you have a moment why not drop by and take a look?

Dear Mormon: A Word can Change your World

Language is a powerful weapon. The ancients knew this and some societies put such great store by it that they wouldn’t even commit it to writing. Enormous feats of memory were developed to pass on the stories of the community from one generation to another and in such communities writing was regarded with great suspicion, as placing your story at the disposal of your enemies. If it could be written it could be owned by others and altered.

In those societies where writing developed and oral traditions were committed to writing the people guarded their written texts as their greatest treasures, copying them with meticulous attention to detail. The ancient texts of the Bible were copied with careful and detailed checking and correction and modern archaeological discoveries confirm the incredible accuracy of modern translations when compared with recent discoveries of ancient texts. It is little wonder since a word can change your world or worldview.

The Mormon Chapbook

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Just Do Something

How many books have you read on seeking and finding the will of God and his “special plan” for your life? Have you found it yet? Or are you still putting off decisions until you get that inexplicable prompt from God that you just know every good and mature Christian experiences on an almost daily basis?

Search no more because Kevin DeYoung has the answer for you. Yes, another book on finding God’s will but with a refreshing twist – it works. In a soundly biblical and biblically sensible little book DeYoung administers more practical and workable common sense advice than you might find in a thousand tomes promising to put you in the centre of God’s will if you will just practice spiritual contortions to make yourself a super Christian.

Forget dreams, ‘pictures’, visions, fleeces, Words, etc. DeYoung has found the truth in the Bible. Who would have thought it? Actually there in God’s written and constant Word? He describes incisively the prevarication so typical of our times and, dismissing what he calls Christianese, he challenges his readers to stop messing about, get up and get on with it; in other words Just Do Something.

If I were a pastor or youth leader I would put a copy of this book in the hands of everyone in my ministerial care and it would lighten my burden of helping lost and aimless souls almost immediately. It would also inspire people young and not so young to finally get on with it and find the joy of making decisions the biblical way and finding God’s purpose in almost everything they do.