The Awesome Church
Promoting our churches is necessary if we want to grow and reach more people. But is there a way to bring less attention to ourselves and more glory to God? What if we deliberately don't tell people everything? What if we let some things happen without seeking a way to get credit? What would it look like to celebrate God's work through simple, direct, and honest thanksgiving? What if we gave annual reports that told not just all the good things from the past year but were honest also about the challenges, disappointments, even failures?
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Immature advisers, moral indignation and the folly of wading into this bloody morass By MAX HASTINGS, Daily Mail
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The Prime Minister seems to see in the crisis that has overtaken Syria his own Falklands moment
The Prime Minister seems to see in the crisis that has overtaken Syria his own Falklands moment, a chance to play the statesman and even warlord on the world stage.
Almost everyone else, however, including the U.S. President, sees a hideously intractable situation in which we meddle at our peril.
Downing Street has told the media that we may expect to see Western cruise missiles launched against Syrian government installations within a matter of days.
Parliament is expected to be recalled to debate the issue today, which presumably means that air strikes may follow soon after.
Downing Street has not, however, indicated what the purpose or expectations of such strikes should be, save to give President Assad a severe whacking.
We can all see that Syria’s leader is an evil and murderous dictator. It is probably true that he is using chemical weapons against his enemies.
Russia’s support for Assad lays bare the nastiness of the regime of President Vladimir Putin, who aspires to play the part of a pocket Stalin.
Deadly
But it is one thing to recognise the iniquity of the Syrian government and its allies, and quite another to entangle the U. S. and Britain in a military campaign of which it is impossible to foresee a happy ending.
All the options for President Obama and Europe’s leaders are bad, as everyone except David Cameron and the idiotic President Francois Hollande of France can see.
Syria is riven by warring factions, each holding chunks of territory. The Israelis have already mounted bombing raids in response to the intervention of the Hezbollah militias, their most deadly enemies. Iran has sent fighters to aid the regime.
Activists say that somewhere between 200 and 1,300 were killed in the chemical weapons attack on Wednesday near Damascus. Syria has one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons of any country
Evidence suggests Assad almost certainly used chemical weapons against his foes and innocent civilians in defiance of the global ban on such horrors
If the struggle drags on, as it probably will, the whole region could be drawn into strife.
The foremost reason Britain’s military, intelligence and diplomatic establishments have united to oppose intervention is that they do not believe any of the available options — notably air strikes and arms deliveries to the insurgents — will end the struggle.
They will merely keep the bloody game in play and possibly make it much worse by precipitating a showdown with Russia. Yet David Cameron and his young Turks have been fuming with anger and frustration for more than a year about what they see as an inescapable moral issue: how can civilised nations stand idly by, they demand, and watch Assad massacre his own people?
Their impatience for action has reached breaking point now evidence suggests Assad almost certainly used chemical weapons against his foes and innocent civilians in defiance of the global ban on such horrors.
As long as Putin remains committed to protecting the Syrian leader, it is hard to see how the West can take effective military action
It is plainly a blow to world order if Syria is able to defy this prohibition and get away with it.
‘Don’t you see the moral imperative?’ one of Cameron’s closest advisers demanded angrily of a sceptical soldier a few months ago.
Unfortunately, for the cause of justice and truth, loose talk about morality is a luxury grown-up governments cannot often afford to indulge.
What matters is what can be done realistically in Syria, a colossal mess in which there is little to choose for nastiness between the competing factions.
‘They’re all nutters,’ said one of the Government’s most sensible ministers — and a profound sceptic about intervention — at a recent National Security Council meeting.
The West faces the huge and probably insoluble problem that President Assad is the client and protege of Russia.
All the options for President Obama and Europe's leaders are bad, as everyone except David Cameron and the idiotic President Francois Hollande of France can see
As long as Putin remains committed to protecting the Syrian leader, it is hard to see how the West can take effective military action.
Syria poses the same dilemma as does North Korea, under China’s guardianship.
Yes, these are monstrous regimes — the North Korean leadership has killed vastly larger numbers of its own people than Assad — but short of going to war with Russia or China, what can the West do?
In recent days, Downing Street has been talking with extraordinary freedom about launching missile strikes.
I hope President Obama sustains his opposition to military intervention in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution in support, which is wildly unlikely to happen
More than a few soldiers see this sort of talk as a reflection of the almost childlike immaturity of some of those around David Cameron.
Most of the people at Westminster and in the media who are calling for military strikes against the Syrian government describe these as ‘quick, limited, clinical action’.
But what happens if they fail to halt Assad’s barbarities? What follows if the Russians and Iranians escalate their support for the Damascus regime?
A British military planner said a couple of months ago: ‘We can come up with 23 scenarios for how we get into Syria, but we don’t see how we then get out again.’
President Obama and his advisers have always recognised this problem much more clearly than Downing Street. This is why the Americans remain so cautious about armed intervention, which Cameron almost daily urges upon them.
Sensible generals always ask two things before getting stuck into any operation: What are our objectives and are they attainable? These questions are fiendishly hard to answer in respect of Syria.
For a start, while almost everyone in the civilised world agrees President Assad is a wicked man, few who know anything about the scores of insurgent groups fighting against him wish to see them replace him in power.
Not long ago, I received an email from an enchanting Syrian who was once our guide on a holiday trip across his country — never, alas, to be repeated amid the wholesale devastation.
Brutalities
He is no friend or natural supporter of Assad, but he wrote in deep dismay about the brutalities committed by the insurgents, mostly enthusiasts for Al Qaeda.
‘Do the West’s leaders know who these people are?’ this guide demanded bitterly.
If the West was led by statesmen rather than mere political operators, they would see that moral indignation is not enough to justify wading into a Middle Eastern morass.
There is some excuse for France’s President Hollande, because he is recognised even by his own people as a buffoon.
He is ever eager for foreign adventures to salvage his rock-bottom standing at home.
But Cameron’s obsession with Syria, and appetite for risk there, baffles even some of those who have to work most closely with him. He seems to suppose that leading a charge against the Damascus regime will enhance his standing and electability with the British people.
In truth, it seems doubtful if even some brilliant and wildly unlikely success there will gain him a single vote.
We are in the throes of extracting ourselves from a failed intervention in Afghanistan, with another defeat in Iraq on the scoreboard.
It seems extraordinary folly to propose a new military engagement in which — to put the matter brutally and cynically — Britain has no national interest at stake whatsoever.
Dangerous
We are still recovering from what we now see as the disastrous Blair era, in which British pretensions to posture on the world stage cost us billions of pounds, hundreds of lives and substantial prestige.
Why seek once more to take a lead, to play the great power, when we are nothing of the sort?
It is, of course, a fine irony that Downing Street wants to play Boy Scout games with cruise missiles after presiding over the most savage proportionate defence cuts in modern history.
By the time this Government has completed its restructuring of the Armed Forces, the only warships a prime minister will be able to deploy will be confined to his bath.
I hope President Obama sustains his opposition to military intervention in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution in support, which is wildly unlikely to happen.
Britain cannot act, thank goodness, without American backing. U.S. generals are as unwilling as British ones to launch a terrifyingly dangerous military foray unless they see a much more convincing strategic rationale than is evident today.
The usual shocked media voices are delivering that familiar cry of: ‘Something must be done!’ But our political leaders are supposed to behave more responsibly than this.
When David Cameron became Prime Minister, I was among those who held out great hopes for him. But he has displayed a lack of judgment, especially in foreign policy, that is deeply dismaying.
What is happening in Syria is ghastly, but so is much else that is going on in the world.
Britain and its allies should not seek to go there, with bombs or missiles or soldiers, unless we have a clear vision of what we hope to achieve — which today is utterly lacking.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2402329/Immature-advisers-moral-indignation-folly-wading-bloody-morass.html#ixzz2d9GxpL9X
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Don't start what you can't finish, warn the top brass: Britain's leading military experts explain how the West should react to Syria By IAN DRURY, Daily Mail
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As Britain, America and France threaten to launch missile strikes against Syria, IAN DRURY asks some of Britain’s leading military experts what the West should do...
LORD WEST OF SPITHEAD
Former First Sea Lord and security adviser in Gordon Brown’s Labour government:
‘We have to be absolutely crystal clear in our own minds that the use of chemical weapons was by the regime. If it was, then I think we can persuade Russia to sign a UN resolution that condemns a head of state for using them against their own people. That seems to be the first move.
‘I’m very wary of military action, even if it is a limited missile strike. What do we hope to achieve? Where will it lead?
‘What if Assad says, “get lost”, and uses chemical weapons again? Are we going to escalate military action? I have a horrible feeling that one strike would quickly become more.
‘The region is a powder keg. We simply can’t predict which way military action will go and whether it would draw us, unwillingly, further into a conflict.’
LORD KING OF BRIDGWATER
Defence Secretary during the First Gulf War:
‘There are no good options, only the least worst ones. I’m very wary of getting involved militarily in the teeth of a major sectarian Sunni-Shia bust-up that could affect the whole region. That’s why it’s so urgent that we get around the table to find a diplomatic and political solution.
‘I’m all in favour of getting Iran [the world’s largest Shia nation] involved because it is vital not to rub them up the wrong way. It’s also important that the Russians are involved: they must not feel as though they’ve been pushed back into a corner.
‘It is imperative to find a solution, and it mustn’t be military. This is turning into such a conflagration that it’s becoming extremely dangerous. I am appalled by the idea that the regime, if that is the case as it appears, would use chemicals against its own people. But the difficulties in how we respond do not become any easier.
‘The idea of a military strike to express disapproval is fraught with problems. We would have to avoid hitting civilians, and if we attacked the chemical plants there is the danger of dispersal of those chemicals into the air. It is hugely important that the UN does show some leadership here.’
MAJOR GENERAL JULIAN THOMPSON
Ex-Royal Marines officer who led 3 Commando Brigade during Falklands War:
‘The attack in Damascus last week has altered the conflict dramatically because
it has aroused a considerable amount of odium around the world. It was a stupid thing to do because Assad has fired up people who, on the whole, were not inclined to do anything about him.
it has aroused a considerable amount of odium around the world. It was a stupid thing to do because Assad has fired up people who, on the whole, were not inclined to do anything about him.
‘If we are going to retaliate – which I don’t think we should – then an attack by a submarine using cruise missiles is the favoured solution because you don’t have
to put troops on the ground and you don’t fly aeroplanes against Syria’s
well-armed air defences.
to put troops on the ground and you don’t fly aeroplanes against Syria’s
well-armed air defences.
‘It is risk-free, but we have to get our targeting right because we don’t want to kill civilians. The problem is we don’t know what the consequences will be. Russia is certainly against it, as is China.
‘There is a perception that Assad is poking us in the eye; if we let him get away with this chemical attack, what will he try next? But I’m wary of acting if we don’t know what the consequences will be.’
Conflict: Men search for survivors amid the rubble of collapsed buildings after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's Fardous neighbourhood
VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JEREMY BLACKHAM
Former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff in 1999:
‘I strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, which is illegal, and the idea of
a punishment strike is not at all unreasonable: how else is international law to be upheld?
a punishment strike is not at all unreasonable: how else is international law to be upheld?
‘Ideally this should have support, or a mandate, from the UN or the International Court of Justice.
‘However, it would be most imprudent to do it without careful consideration of, and proper preparation for, the range of consequences which might follow. This is not
a very nice dilemma and the answer is not at all obvious.’
a very nice dilemma and the answer is not at all obvious.’
COLONEL RICHARD KEMP
Former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan:
‘If the Syrian regime carried out a nerve agent attack, then a limited but
devastating surgical air strike is not only justified but necessary in order to send
a clear message to Assad.
devastating surgical air strike is not only justified but necessary in order to send
a clear message to Assad.
‘It is essential that the US and UK base their decision on the best possible
chemical analysis, backed up by firm intelligence to confirm who was responsible.
chemical analysis, backed up by firm intelligence to confirm who was responsible.
‘Of course our governments will need to be prepared to follow up with a second, more severe, wave of attacks if Assad responds with another chemical strike or some other outrage. But we must not be drawn into a protracted campaign, either in the air or on the ground. It would not be long before all sides turned against us.
‘And while it will be possible – under the table – to square a swift and limited intervention with Russia, a wider operation would be much more likely to develop into a proxy war or worse.
‘Nor should we supply rebel fighters dominated by Islamist extremists with anti-aircraft or anti-armour missiles: they are sworn enemies of the West.’
GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE
Former SAS commander and leader of United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994-95:
‘The credibility of America hinges on Obama doing something after he said use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that couldn’t be crossed.
‘I am not against a military strike, but the intelligence has got to be good and the target has got to be very specific; so specific that it identifies the unit that carried out the attacks.
‘If not, we will be seen to be siding with the rebels – and that should not be the business of the Western powers. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be, and we could end up with people in power who are worse even than Assad.
‘We need to be imposing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone, which would reduce the level of the violence. This is a total lose-lose situation for the people of Syria. But however terrible their suffering is with Assad and his brutal ways, the end result of an escalating arms race will be to make things worse. The suffering will only be greater.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2402406/Syria-Dont-start-finish-warn-brass.html#ixzz2d9FVChNu
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Monday, 26 August 2013
Views, Visions and Values.: Christian Marriage & Dating
Views, Visions and Values.: Christian Marriage & Dating: http://blog.christianconnection.co.uk/i-was-wondering-about-playing-against-type/ * I made a decision, some time ago had to re-post...
An unholy war in the Guides and why we must ALL fight the secular bigots By MELANIE PHILLIPS
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Like a poorly knotted woggle, the attempt by the Girl Guides to rope in the new generation is now steadily unravelling.
In June, the Guides announced they were changing the historic promise made by all Guides and Brownies from ‘to love my God’ to ‘be true to myself and develop my beliefs’.
They would also drop the pledge to serve ‘my country’, which was to be replaced by ‘my community’.
According to the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, the old promise, which included 'to love my God', put some girls off because they found it 'confusing'. The new formula, she said, would be easier for Guides to make and keep
According to the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, the old promise put some girls off because they found it ‘confusing’. The new formula, she said, would be easier for Guides to make and keep.
The change — which comes into force in six days’ time — was received with horror and outrage by Christians, and left many others bemused and uneasy. It seemed to be just a crude and shallow attempt by the Guiding establishment to rebrand itself as modern, by dumping timeless values.
Much worse was to follow, though. Guide groups in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, rightly dismayed by the proposed change, announced last week that they would encourage their girls and leaders to continue to use the old promise.
In a letter written jointly with a local vicar, they insisted the movement had to keep ‘God at its core’. Impeccably fair-minded and inclusive, they also proposed to offer the new promise to anyone who might prefer that form of words.
Yet in response, Ms Slocombe said such rebels ‘need to accept this change’, and even suggested they could be forced out of the movement altogether if they did not.
So much for diversity!
For with this not-so-veiled threat, the true intention of the movement’s leaders has been laid bare. A move they claimed to be more inclusive has turned out to be entirely the opposite.
The change in promise seems to be just a shallow attempt by the Guiding establishment to rebrand itself as modern, by dumping timeless values. Girl Guides from East London, in 1957, pictured
Indeed, it now stands revealed as being actively discriminatory, and far from pulling down any (mythical) barriers to joining the movement, the Guide leaders are actually putting them up.
Under the spurious guise of encouraging membership by atheists, or (inexplicably) those with an aversion to serving their country, the Guides are now threatening to expel those who wish to express a religious belief.
A belief, moreover, which forms the basis of the Christian values in which the Girl Guide movement is rooted, and on which its identity rests.
Yet this movement is now actively discriminating against those who wish to proclaim the continuation of those religious values at its own core.
Having dumped God and country altogether, it is now actually forbidding Guides — on pain of excommunication — to promise to serve anything beyond themselves. Is this not beyond perverse?
Under the spurious guise of encouraging membership by atheists, the Guides are now threatening to expel those who wish to express a religious belief
For there is no reason why the new promise needs to be exclusive of any other. After all, the Scouts apparently intend to offer atheists an alternative promise rather than abandon the existing one.
Other institutions have long done something similar to accommodate both believers and non-believers. When you swear to tell the truth in court, for example, or take the oath of allegiance as a new Member of Parliament, you are given the choice to swear on the Bible or to affirm.
Just imagine if you were forbidden to give evidence in court or take your seat in Parliament if you insisted on swearing on the Bible! Of course this would be utterly unthinkable. And yet that is precisely what the Guides are now doing. As church leaders have pointed out, this is nothing other than secular totalitarianism.
There is thus a weary absence of surprise upon learning that the Guides’ chief executive, Julia Bentley, formerly headed an abortion and contraception group. For it is hard to think of a background which more powerfully symbolises merciless and doctrinaire individualism.
Indeed, to Ms Bentley the Guides are the ‘ultimate feminist organisation’ but — tsk! — ‘too middle-class’.
Thus she revealed herself to be just another politically correct zealot, standing for the secular sectarianism of group rights. For far from serving the whole of society, each such interest group exists to gain power over everyone else — and damns anyone who stands in its way.
Indeed, this is why ‘political correctness’ is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma — and thus inescapably stifles all dissent.
Innately hostile to traditional morality, it paves the way for a secular Inquisition in which today’s Torquemadas are the ideologues of such group rights — and it is Christians and other religious believers who are the heretics to be silenced by force.
'Political correctness' is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma - and thus inescapably stifles all dissent (file picture)
It is, indeed, the principal weapon of unholy war wielded by the forces of militant secularism, which are intent upon destroying the Judeo-Christian basis of western morality. It supplants traditional morality and the concepts of right and wrong, truth and lies by a creed which says in effect, ‘Whatever is right for you is right’.
It also seeks to replace patriotism and service to one’s country by serving ‘the community’.
This is yet another slippery concept, which today can simply amount to membership of just such an interest group which is in the business of elbowing out other interest groups in the greedy clamour for entitlements.
So the new Guiding promise is all about being true to me, myself and my beliefs, whatever they may happen to be. It represents the antithesis of duty to others. It says, more or less, ‘I promise to serve myself’.
It is a promise for a narcissistic, self-centred and morally vacuous age.
this is the Girl Guides we are talking about, for heaven’s sake!
They have now managed to embody the aggressive secularism and hyper-individualism that the retiring Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, talked about yesterday when he told BBC Radio’s Sunday Programme that British society was ‘losing the plot’.
As he said, religious faith underpins the existence of trust. When religion breaks down, trust breaks down. When society becomes secularised, the collapse of trust and the rise of individualism mean the breakdown of social institutions such as the family.
Worse than that, by replacing God with an ideology which brooks no dissent, individualism is a mechanism for illiberalism and even tyranny as these groups get their way through tactics of insult, professional ostracism or outright banning.
Now, though, some Christians are fighting back. Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said that he hoped ‘many others’ would join the rebellion by the Harrogate Guide groups.
And now some churches are saying they will deny the Guides the use of church halls, which hitherto hundreds of their groups have used for free.
As the Rev Paul Williamson, vicar of St George’s church in Feltham, West London, has said, it would be hypocritical of the Guides to expect to use the church’s premises after abandoning its core beliefs.
That’s the spirit! Such responses show that, faced with the kind of secular intolerance that is now in danger of pushing Christianity to the very margins of society, the Church is not altogether on its knees.
Churches should deny the Guides use of their premises. Guide groups should offer the old promise, and people should refuse to join those that do not.
Only through such mass resistance will the secular zealots who have hijacked the Girl Guides be faced down, and a great institution be restored to the defence of a decent society, rather than hastening its demise.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2401899/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-An-unholy-war-Guides-ALL-fight-secular-bigots.html#ixzz2d3oaM1TD
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