Leaving my religion

Channel 4, tonight at 7.55 pm. 

Ro's Conversion from Zoroastrianism 

Pod's Conversion from Sikhism 

CCEF UK

Good news for the UK Church. 

CCEF Event 

23rd February 2013

Harvest Thanksgiving

I love this invite. It is as far from having a feel like Tipton as is possible to be. 

Yet it reeks of what 'Harvest Thanksgiving' should feel like! 

With the Lord's help we'll be thanking him in Tipton on Sunday for this years Harvest (!) and for all his goodness to us in many ways.  
If you are 11-14 years old you get an invite with a slightly different feel. 

Justice Lifts the Nations

by Paul Roberts (in the old Supreme Court Building, Lausanne, Switzerland)

HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE  (p106-107)

© God

This looks fantastic. Or could be anyway.

Show me who a man lives with

... and I will show you what he is. 

You must remember we are all creatures of imitation; precept may teach us but example draws us. Thoughts for Young Men (p58)

Do you feel like a fraud?

We are God’s offspring who were intended for greatness and we seem to ruin everything we touch.

From the the perfect Monday morning blog post for my soul! 

The Story of God, the World and You

Only true grown-ups can parent

A funny, searching and helpful exploration here of why it is we might be good at critiquing our parents but go all wobbly when it comes to doing the job better ourselves!!
No doubt there are multiple applications of this. But the main one seems enough to be going on with to be honest! 
Timothy Larsen says this very interesting thing in the article:

More and more I have come to value those who model how to no longer hold to the exact version of faith they grew up with while still finding ways to be grateful for and affirming of the community of faith that raised them.

HT Justin Taylor

Delightful

HT Tim V-B via FB

Children of LGBT Parents

The statistical studies:

The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures and the “No Differences” Claim

A personal testimony:

Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View

HT Matthew Mason via Facebook

Leaning to the left?

Why pushing to the right is harder than pushing to the left.

Andrew Wilson gives three reasons why this is the case in the UK today: 

1. The first is to do with the youth-centred spirit of the age, in which freshness is more fashionable than faithfulness, innovating inspires people more than imitating, technology trumps tradition, and novelty is confused with creativity.  

2. ... contemporary secular culture is well to the left of the Bible on most things it teaches. Non-Christian Britain thinks the Scriptures are backward on all sorts of topics, including judgment, evolution, tradition, war, marriage, slavery, sexual ethics, holiness, gender roles, and the idea of teaching doctrine in the first place. So when we move to the left, we are almost without exception moving closer to what the culture around us thinks, and that makes the process much more comfortable for us.  

3. ...the victims of excessive rightishness are much easier to identify, and to feel sorry for, than the victims of excessive leftishness. An anti-war protest is much easier to recruit for than a pro-war protest. It’s easy to make movies, or posters, about the victims of slavery and domestic abuse; not so much about the victims of abortion, since they don’t live long enough to be given names. When a couple splits up through unfaithfulness, causing massive pain to their children, the individualistic, morally leftish values that made it possible are not personified, and nobody blames the newspapers, TV shows or movies that make short-term romantic fulfilment life’s ultimate purpose. 

HT Justin Taylor

Our National Hypocrisy

How can you cheer for our Paralympians and support Britain’s abortion laws*?

* The 1967 Abortion Act as a pdf or this summary is from the NHS Website: 

In the UK, abortion is legal up until 24 weeks of pregnancy, although most abortions are carried out much earlier than this.In rare circumstances, an abortion can sometimes be carried out after 24 weeks (see below).The Abortion Act 1967In accordance with The Abortion Act 1967, an abortion must usually be carried out before 24 weeks of pregnancy.The few situations when the law states an abortion may be carried out after 24 weeks are:

• if it is necessary to save the woman's life

• to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman 

• if there is substantial risk that if the child were born, s/he would have physical or mental abnormalities and be seriously handicapped

HT: Maurice McCracken via Facebook 

The Empire Strikes Back

If you sing imprecatory psalms at those who took your parking place, you are either a fool or diabolical. If you "agree to disagree" with Jezebel, Nero, or the devil, then you are trying to adulterate the Word of God.

For the full exhortation to psalm singing blessing of your enemies click here.