Dear Friends, Dan Poulter is an MP who still works as a doctor. He has this to say concerning the issue of assisted dying and so-called “right to die” legislation: “I cannot see that we could make legislation on this without leaving people open to abuse … I’m not doubting the good motives of most
Read moreDear Friends, It’s not hard to feel that everything is going against Christians in the UK at the moment. There are proposals to extend marriage to same-sex couples, a possible ban on wearing a cross in the workplace if the employer requires it, and now perhaps the extension of Sunday trading hours beyond the Olympics.
Read moreDear Friends, One of the benefits of believing that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) is that we keep wrestling with those parts of the Bible we don’t fully understand. We’re not satisfied – or at least we shouldn’t be – to imagine that there’s anything either defective in the text or confused in
Read moreHow can we be useful to God? It is quite a thought that we can be useful to him at all. We might wonder what good puny human beings, even Christian human beings, like us can be to the Almighty Creator. Yet, that is exactly what the Bible says: “In a large house there are
Read moreDear Friends, Two recent news stories have caught my attention, partly because of the link between them. The first is the revelation that some abortion clinics are agreeing to abortions solely on the grounds of the gender of the baby. The second is the government’s proposal to re-define marriage so as to extend it to
Read moreDear Friends, This week has brought the revelation that there seem to be some doctors at abortion clinics in this country who are willing to conduct abortions purely on the grounds of the gender of the baby. There has, quite rightly, been outrage that anyone would do what is both immoral and illegal. But one
Read moreDear Friends, Baroness Warsi, chairman of the Conservative Party and a Muslim, said this week that, “My fear is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies.” She explains that we are in danger of denying any Christian influence in the history of Europe: “The societies we live in, the cultures we have
Read moreDear Friends, I haven’t heard it for a while, but then I don’t travel by train as much as I used to. When a train pulled into a station and wasn’t going any further, the announcement would be, “All change!” Everyone had to change trains, or at least leave that train. It’s not a bad
Read moreDear friends, I was heartened to read what the Archbishop of York said last weekend in response to government proposals to allow same-sex couples to marry. He said, “Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is.” It shows
Read moreDear Friends, What is ‘secular grace’? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. How can ‘grace’, which comes from God, be ‘secular’, where there is no room for God? However, the phrase aptly describes what we find portrayed constantly in TV shows and other media. Secular grace is the unconditional acceptance of other people and
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