Cartoons of the Islamic founder and “prophet”, Mohammed, one of which depicted him with a bomb, were published in various European newspapers – and Muslims worldwide went wild with (albeit carefully choreographed) anger. Depicting Mohammed is prohibited by Islam. The cartoons were first published in a daily newspaper in Denmark. Later, other newspapers published them as well, insisting on the western tradition of freedom of the press.
‘Dear Muslim neighbour’
Witnessing for Christ has never been and will never be an easy task and this is probably truer today than ever before. Today, any notion of there being an absolute, exclusive, narrow ‘truth’ in the spiritual realm flies totally in the face of the ‘spirit of this age’ – an age that is characterised by an unwillingness to accept the ‘truth’ of absolute ‘truth’, that promotes as dogma, both religiously and politically, the supposed ‘truth’ of ‘truth’ being relative and that despises those who would preach an absolute ‘truth’, such as faithful Christian witnesses [a good example was both the audience and some panel reaction to the participation of Stephen Green of Christian Voice in the BBC’s Question Time on 29 September 2005] and ministers of The Gospel. In recent years the focus of the world has been very much directed to the religion of Islam. Constantly high-ranking politicians such as Tony Blair and George W Bush tell us that ‘Islam means peace’. Well, even the new Pope has more sense than to agree with such an erroneous statement. In a report of an interview given by the Pope to journalists, the Roman Catholic Zenit News Agency reported as follows [25 July 2005]
Tribute to Bart Brewer
Tribute to Bart Brewer
In 1990 at a conference in London the Lord providentially brought me into contact with Bart Brewer and his wife Ruth and we immediately ‘hit it off’ and became good friends. Bart had for a number of years been a Roman Catholic Carmelite priest and then the Lord graciously saved him and eventually led him to establish ‘Mission to Catholics’ based in San Diego. The story of Bart’s time as a Roman Catholic priest and his subsequent conversion are told in his book ‘Pilgrimage from Rome’.
The Gospel According to Warren by Pastor Gary Gilley
No one has exemplified the market-driven approach better than Rick Warren, pastor of the huge Saddleback Church in southern California and author of The Purpose-Driven Church and The Purpose-Driven Life. While Warren is open and up-front about his philosophy, strategy and methods, nevertheless things are not always as they appear. For example, “purpose-driven” sounds better than “market-driven” but it is basically the same thing. In his book The Purpose-Driven Life, his opening statement is, “It is not about you,” then turns around and writes a whole book about “you.” He belittles pop-psychology then repeatedly promotes it by simply calling it something else. He publicly cuts ties with Robert Schuller, then regurgitates some of the most odious things that Schuller has been teaching for thirty years. He claims commitment to the Scriptures then undermines them at almost every turn. He will tell his followers that he is not tampering with the message but only reengineering the methods, when in fact he has so altered the message as to make it all but unrecognisable.
The Tsunami – Why? – A Morrison
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by Alan Morrison
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(Director, Diakrisis International)
A question in the minds of many at the present time is this: Why has God let this Tsunami disaster happen? The answer to this is not really very complicated for a believer to comprehend – a believer who has the Big Picture. However, for an unbeliever to accept the answer is understandably rather more complicated.
Alf McCreary, The Queen and The Dalai Lama
When Tony Blair became British Prime Minister his popularity and reputation grew rapidly thanks to the efforts of one man – Alister Campbell – who became known as his ‘spin doctor’. Mr Campbell made sure that the press and media were kept fully informed about all that would enhance the standing of Mr Blair with the citizens of the United Kingdom and even further afield.
Well, if the Dalai Lama ever needs his own ‘spin doctor’ then he should seriously consider Alf McCreary, ‘Religion Correspondent’ with the Belfast Telegraph. In November 2005 the Dalai Lama paid a return visit to Northern Ireland and any reader of the Belfast Telegraph would be entirely without excuse if they claimed to be unaware of his visit.
Each Saturday in the Belfast Telegraph Mr McCreary authors a page entitled ‘This Life’ and it is usually made up of a lead article and perhaps one or two smaller items. On consecutive Saturdays [19th and 26th November] the lead article for each ‘This Life’ page was devoted to the Dalai Lama. One article was called ‘A welcome visitor’ and the other ‘The Dalai Lama and an Ulster “Blackman”’ [the term ‘Blackman’ refers to a member of a particular fraternal organisation and has nothing to do with race or colour].
‘FANTASY RELIGION’ or ‘BIBLICAL REALITY’?
Several years ago there was a programme on television called ‘Fantasy Football’ [for Australian and American readers that is ‘football’ as in the ‘soccer’ variety’]. I never did personally watch the programme so I can only surmise that with its title it contained a large proportion of ‘make-believe’content and the intent would have been for it not to be identified with the real world of ‘football’.
On Saturday 3rd December 2005, in a funeral that was watched by millions around the world, Northern Ireland said farewell to George Best who was without doubt the most naturally gifted football player ever to have represented us on the stage of world soccer. Following his tragically early death at the age of 59 when he lost a long-running battle with alcoholism multitudes of articles were written about him in scores of newspapers. Continue reading
News From The Front – December 2005
Dear praying friends,
Let me first update you on some matters that you have been praying about. My niece Heather underwent a scan after her 6 chemo sessions finished and she was told that the cancer is now in remission for which we praise God. She is hoping perhaps to start work early in the New Year [DV]. Her condition will be closely and regularly monitored. Please pray on for her physical AND spiritual needs. For those who received details of the French Court Case involving our brother in Christ, Axel, a verdict is expected in early December [see blue enclosure] – again do please pray on that he will be released back to his family.
Again I would earnestly covet your prayers for what is shaping up to be a very busy first 4 months of 2006 [DV]. Please pray that many will attend and be helped by the seminars on Islam [see pages 3-4] and also through the special meetings involving Pastor Gary Gilley [see pages 7-10].
Next year [DV] will also herald for me one of those ‘landmark’ birthdays so please do pray that the Lord will graciously enable me to continue “with patience the race that is set before me” [Hebrews 12:1]. Margaret and I thank you for all your love and kindness at this the end of yet another year.
Christianity, Islam and British Politics – Clifford
- Christianity, Islam and British Politics
- A lecture given at the UK Conservatism Conference
- Oxford Brookes University, Saturday, 26 November 2005
- Dr Alan C. Clifford
- BA, MLitt, PhD
A glut of highly significant secular and religious autumn anniversaries provides a stimulating context for my subject. Using more broadly the now-universal convention of identifying momentous events like New York’s ‘9/11’, Madrid’s ‘3/11’ and London’s ‘7/7’, I cite first some famous secular examples from more distant history. First, we may recall ‘10/14’, the Battle of Hastings, the last of four major invasions of the British Isles in a millennium by ‘Europeans’ – 1066 and all that, of course! Then, more positively in this bicentenary year, there’s ‘10/21’ when ‘Europe’ was on the receiving end of Lord Nelson’s decisive broadsides at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Not until 1940 was this country seriously threatened again by a foreign power. I pass by ‘10/25’ in 1415. Agincourt, Henry V and the savage nationalism of the Hundred Years War warrant national shame rather than pride. Indeed, driven by the power-hungry Plantagenets, the whole era has something of an ‘Iraq War whiff’ about it! Another noted ‘10/25’ was of course the distant Crimean Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Inglorious for the British High Command, the heroism of ‘the six hundred’ is justly celebrated. Stepping into November, and closer to home, we rightly remember annually the enormous costly sacrifice represented by ‘11/11’, the Armistice of 1918, when the four-year horror of the First World War came to an end.
The perverted ‘preaching’ of Rowan Williams
On Tuesday 1st November 2005 a service of remembrance was held in St Paul’s Cathedral in London in memory of those who died when Islamic suicide bombers detonated their devices in four locations in London on 7th July 2005.
In the course of the service, a ‘sermon’ was ‘preached’ by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The following is a transcript of a section of what he said –
‘The last few months have seen many people trying to respond to this widespread fear, trying to calm and reassure us. One reaction is through security provisions and new legislation [TV camera focuses on Prime Minister, Tony Blair]; another has been in the powerful and consistent response of all our faith communities [TV camera focuses on 6 young people representing Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism who will later each light a wick in a large communal ‘candle of hope’]. As it happens, today’s commemoration falls at a time when several of us are marking [Muslim ‘Eid’ and Hindu ‘D’wali’] or approaching [‘Christian Christmas’] very significant festivals in our religious calendars. So we face the tragedy together today, drawing on our most important resources.