Now Scotland wants tax breaks to bail out struggling oil industry... just four months after Salmond said North Sea would bankroll his independence dream, Daily Mail

Now Scotland wants tax breaks to bail out struggling oil industry... just four months after Salmond said North Sea would bankroll his independence dream

·         Price of a barrel of Brent crude has more than halved since June to $48

·         Dramatic fall undermines SNP claim that oil would make Scotland rich

·         Now Scottish ministers are demanding UK government steps in

·         Chancellor George Osborne under pressure ahead of Budget in March

·         Oil expert Sir Ian Wood says taxes should be cut by up to 10%

·         Tories condemn SNP 'deceit' that the price of oil would rise and rise

The Scottish government is demanding tax cuts to bailout the oil industry, just four months after claiming that booming North Sea reserves would bankroll independence.

The move has been ridiculed by supporters of the Union, who point out that if voters had backed independence in September the country would not be in crisis.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude – the global benchmark – has more than halved since June to around $48 (£31.50). Experts predict it could fall as low as $31 (£20.44) by April.

The weak oil price seriously undermines the claim by the SNP's Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon nationalists that an independent Scotland could rely on its natural resources.

Scotland's Energy Minister last night issued a demand for new tax breaks to shore up the industry, after BP announced it was cutting 200 onshore workers and 100 contractor roles from its 3,500 staff in the North Sea.

Mr Ewing said: 'It is clear to me that the UK Government has accepted it must act on tax. My question is why wait in respect of the supplementary charge until March

'This is the most serious jobs situation Scotland has faced in living memory.'

But rival parties have this week condemned the SNP for demanding help from Westminster just months after wanting to sever ties with the rest of the UK. 

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: 'The SNP told the people of Scotland the price of oil would rise and rise - that was a deceit.

'No end of experts pointed out the many flaws in this fanciful policy, but they were dismissed by the Scottish Government as scaremongering.

'In the last few weeks we've seen just how volatile the price of oil really is.'  

Read more here:

Grey Matter: 50 Shades, pornography and the shaping of our brains

Grey Matter: 50 Shades, pornography and the shaping of our brains

Grey Matter: 50 Shades, pornography and the shaping of our brains, Fifty Shades of Grey hits UK cinemas this Valentine’s day.

Six years on from writing a major feature on porn and the UK Church for Premier Christianity, Martin Saunders explores the growing impact of sexually explicit content on modern culture.

Porn, and the way it is shaping our individual and collective cultural mindset, has moved on dramatically since I last wrote on the subject for this title six years ago. Sexually explicit material is no longer on the fringes of our culture; it’s in the mainstream. 

Yet while the ‘dirty secret’ about porn is well and truly out, Christians still haven’t made much of a dent in the problem. In fact, porn use is rife among Christians and Christian leaders. In putting this article together I conducted a simple online survey of British Christians (see the box for more details) and, even knowing what we do about the prolificacy of porn, the results make for surprising reading. 

The survey suggests that more than half of Christian men and around a fifth of Christian women in the UK are using porn on a regular or semi-regular basis. Pornography isn’t just something unpleasant going on in the world; it’s right at the heart of our churches. 

Why, when the Church has apparently woken up to its porn problem, is its use even more prolific than we perhaps imagined? What has enabled this? Is it time to respond in ways other than the existing, and seemingly flawed ones? To answer these questions, let’s take a step back and look at how society’s relationship with adult material has shifted in recent years.

Martin Saunders  is the creative director at Youthscape, a contributor to Premier Youthwork and Premier Christianity and a host at the annual Youthwork Summit.

5 Ways God Speaks to His People

5 Ways God Speaks to His People

God is almost always speaking to us. If we aren't hearing His voice it's usually either because we haven't obeyed His last instruction and He's waiting patiently for us to get in line with His prophetic prompting or because we haven't done the four things I discussed in the first article of this series.

If you've positioned your heart to hear from God and you still aren't hearing—and you are walking in obedience—it's possible that you just don't recognize His mode of communication. There are many, many ways God communicates with His people. In Part 1 of this series, we'll look at five common ways God speaks. (Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can get Part 2 in your email inbox.)

1. The Holy Spirit speaks through supernatural wisdom.

In Ephesians Paul prayed that the Father of glory would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus (see Eph. 1:17). Jesus is our wisdom (see 1 Cor. 1:24, 30). I believe sometimes God speaks prophetic wisdom to our hearts, but we reason ourselves out of it. We block the supernatural wisdom of God by letting our mind rule over our heart. That's why I take a hint from Solomon and pray for wisdom.

I believe that if we pray more for spiritual wisdom—even if it means praying less for natural needs—we'll receive more wisdom and our natural needs will be more than met. I also believe that as we pray in faith for wisdom, we'll have the faith to receive it however it comes, whether through a flash of inspiration; a still, small voice; a dream or vision; or some other mode of heavenly communication.

The 'New York Times' Sanctions Anti-Religious Bigotry

The 'New York Times' Sanctions Anti-Religious Bigotry

The pattern is now completely predictable: Gay activists and their allies overplay their hand, and the liberal media says, "Well done! We fully support your intolerance."

Last week, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed fired Kelvin Cochran, the city's fire chief with 30 years of service behind him. As the mayor's statements made abundantly clear—and as we documented in the article, "The Mayor of Atlanta Declares War on Religious Freedom"—Cochran was fired because of his biblical beliefs that homosexual practice was abhorrent in God's sight. (Cochran also spoke against fornication, with specific reference to heterosexual promiscuity, along with bestiality, pedophilia and other sexual sins.)

The mayor's actions were so egregious (in keeping with the pattern of intolerance in the name of tolerance) that Christian leaders, both national and local, gathered in Atlanta on Tuesday to protest Cochran's dismissal.

Not to be outdone, the New York Times editorial board released an opinion piece earlier the same day, defending the mayor's actions and repeating the claim that Cochran was not fired for his beliefs but for his poor judgment. Their reasoning is as spurious as was the mayor's, but coming from the Times, it is even more dangerous.

New York Times, Opinion Piece

Hillsong UNITED Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) Lyric Video

Archbishops Justin Welby And John Sentamu Make Their Biggest Political Intervention Yet, Huffington Post

The Church of England has labelled income inequality "evil" in a scathing assessment of the coalition, in which it questions how David Cameron has allowed entire communities to be "cast aside."

In one of the Church's biggest ever political interventions, timed to coincide with the general election campaign, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said valuing communities on purely economic output was a "fundamental sin", and claimed Britain has become dominated by consumerism and selfishness.

In a video to launch the collection of essays in his new book Rock or Sand?, which includes a contribution from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, admitted the Church was making a political intervention but said it was not trying to be party political, despite remarks being clearly aimed at coalition policies.

Dr Sentamu said the UK faced a "deep, deep economic crisis" during the last four and-a-half years and said inequality trapped "hard-working" families on "poverty wages".

An extract from Archbishop Welby's essay, published in the Daily Telegraph, also criticises the "un-Christian" principle of of what is known as Social Darwinism - "every person for themselves", and said while London and the South East are growing economically, "entire cities are being cast aside" and left to decline.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Daily Telegraph Archbishops’ pre-election assault on ‘evil’ of inequality in Coalition Britain

Daily Telegraph Archbishop of York says politicians obsessed with ‘beguiling Middle England’

More on Social Darwinism

Words for the Wise, Romans 10:15, Oswald Chambers Where Am I? A Spiritual Stock-Taking

Oswald Chambers

Where Am I?

A Spiritual Stock-Taking

Why Do I Want to Work? (Romans 10:15)

Romans 10 The Voice (VOICE)

10 My brothers and sisters, I pray constantly to God for the salvation of my people; it is the deep desire of my heart. ² What I can say about them is that they are enthusiastic about God, but that won’t lead them to Him because their zeal is not based on true knowledge. ³ In their ignorance about how God is working to make things right, they have been trying to establish their own right standing with God through the law. But they are not operating under God’s saving, restorative justice. ⁴ You see, God’s purpose for the law reaches its climax when the Anointed One arrives; now all who trust in Him can have their lives made right with God.

God’s plan to restore the world disfigured by sin and death reaches its climax with the resurrection of Jesus. When the King enters, all the prophecies, all the hopes, all the longings find in Him their true fulfillment. There may have been earlier fulfillments; but these are only partial fulfillments, signposts along the way to God’s true goal. The goal has been the restoration of people to a holy God. With Jesus, we find the only perfect man with right standing before God. He comes to blaze a path defined by God’s justice, not by our own sense of right and wrong. All men, women, and children who commit their lives to Him will be made right with God and will begin new lives defined by faith and God’s new covenant.

⁵ Moses made this clear long ago when he wrote about what it takes to have a right relationship with God based on the law: “The person devoted to the law’s commands will live by them.”^[a] 6 But a right relationship based on faith sounds like this: “Do not say to yourselves, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’”^[b] (that is, to bring down the Anointed One), ⁷ “or, ‘Who will go down into the abyss?’”^[c] (that is, to bring the Anointed One up from the dead). ⁸ But what does it actually say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”^[d] (that is, the good news we have been called to preach to you). ⁹ So if you believe deep in your heart that God raised Jesus from the pit of death and if you voice your allegiance by confessing the truth that “Jesus is Lord,” then you will be saved!¹⁰ Belief begins in the heart and leads to a life that’s right with God; confession departs from our lips and brings eternal salvation. ¹¹ Because what Isaiah saidwas true: “The one who trusts in Him will not be disgraced.”^[e] 12 Remember that the Lord draws no distinction between Jew and non-Jew—He is Lord over all things, and He pours out His treasures on all who invoke His name¹³ because as Scripture says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”^[f]

Faith is not something we do. It is a response to what God has done already on our behalf, the response of a spirit restless in a fragmented world.

¹⁴ How can people invoke His name when they do not believe? How can they believe in Him when they have not heard? How can they hear if there is no one proclaiming Him? ¹⁵ How can some give voice to the truth if they are not sentby God? As Isaiah said, “Ah, how beautiful the feet of those who declare the good news of victory, of peace and liberation.”^[g] 16 But some will hear the good news and refuse to submit to the truth they hear. Isaiah the prophet also says, “Lord, who would ever believe it? Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told?”^[h] 17 So faith proceeds from hearing, as we listen to the message about God’s Anointed.

¹⁸ But let me ask this: have my people ever heard? Indeed, they have:

Yet from here to the ends of the earth, their voice has gone out;
    the whole world has heard what they have to say.^[i]

¹⁹ But again let me ask: did Israel perhaps hear and not understand all of this?Well, Moses was the first to say,

I will make you jealous with a people who are not a nation.
    With a senseless people I will anger you.^[j]

²⁰ Then Isaiah the fearless prophet says it this way:

I was found by people who did not seek Me;
    I showed My face to those who never asked for Me.^[k]

²¹ And as to the fate of Israel, God says,

All day long I opened My hands
    to a rebellious people, who constantly work against Me.^[l]

Romans 10:14f  The Voice

14 How can people invoke His name when they do not believe? How can they believe in Him when they have not heard? How can they hear if there is no one proclaiming Him? 15 How can some give voice to the truth if they are not sent by God? As Isaiah said, “Ah, how beautiful the feet of those who declare the good news of victory, of peace and liberation.”[g] 16 But some will hear the good news and refuse to submit to the truth they hear. Isaiah the prophet also says, “Lord, who would ever believe it? Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told?”[h] 17 So faith proceeds from hearing, as we listen to the message about God’s Anointed.

18 But let me ask this: have my people ever heard? Indeed, they have:

Yet from here to the ends of the earth, their voice has gone out;

    the whole world has heard what they have to say.[i]

The Christian worker must be sent; he must not elect to go. Nowadays that is the last thing thought of; it is a determination on the part of the individual—“This is something I can do, and I am going to do it.” Beware of demanding that people go into work, it is a craze; the majority of saved souls are not fit to feed themselves yet. How am I to know I have been sent of God? Firstly, by the realisation that I am utterly weak and powerless and if I am to be of any use to God, God must do it all the time. Is this the humiliating certainty of my soul, or merely a sentimental phrase? Secondly, because I know I have to point men to Jesus Christ, not to get them to think what a holy man I am.

 The only way to be sent is to let God lift us right out of any sense of fitness in ourselves and place us where He will. The man whose work tells for God is the one who not only realises what God has done for him but who realises his own utter unfitness and overwhelming unsuitability—the impossibility of God ever calling me. God allows us to scrutinise ourselves in order to understand what Paul said: “We also are weak in him.”

Occasionally it may happen in your life as a worker that all you have been trying honestly and eagerly to do for God falls about your ears in ruins, and in your utterly crushed and discouraged condition God brings slowly to your mind this truth—“I have been using your work as scaffolding to perfect you to be a worker for Myself; now arise, shake off the dust, and it shall be told you what you must do.” Before ever God can use us as workers He has to bring us to a place of entire poverty, where we shall have no doubt as to where we are, “Here I am, absolutely no good!” Then God can send us, but not until then. We put hindrances in the way of God’s working by trying to do things for Him. The impatience of modern life has so crept into Christian work that we will not settle down before God and find out what He wants us to do.