Many people in the UK are living in fear – workers are afraid of losing their job, politicians are afraid saying the wrong thing, top footballers are in fear of racial abuse, and Jews are in fear of antisemitism. Even children are in fear, of being abused on social media and of climate change. Parents fear social workers removing their children from their care. Teenagers in London are afraid of being knifed to death. One in three women are in fear of their neighbours discovering they have had an abortion. Brexiteers are in fear of being betrayed by politicians and Remainers are in fear of the imagined catalysm if Britain ‘crashes out’ of the European Union. The hard left is in fear of the hard right, and vice versa. Each group is afraid of other groups and the list goes on.

This culture of fear has replaced ‘live and let live’, in step with secularism replacing Christianity in the United Kingdom.

“You won’t miss the water till the well runs dry” – slowly, people are discovering what happens when you replace the fear of God with the fear of man. They have still to diagnose the problem.

Jesus Christ addresses these fears and one of the commonest phrases in the Bible is ‘Fear not’. The godly Psalmist knew how to deal with it: ‘we will not fear though the earth quakes and the mountains be moved into the midst of the sea’ Ps 46:1-5.

‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment.  Whoever is afraid has not been perfected in love.’

1st epistle of John 4:18

Update

27 Aug 2019: Ian Blackford, SNP leader in the House of Commons is “scared witless”. It is not clear why the UK should follow his fears. He also told the BBC news today that the opposition attempt to stop a no-deal Brexit was their exercise of Parliamentary sovereignty. He commented: “The UK is a parliamentary democracy – parliamentary sovereignty – parliamentarians have the power to stop this.” However, SNP doctrine is that sovereignty resides in the people and argue that ‘the people of Scotland’ voted to stay in the EU.

10 Sep 2019: Ian Blackford in this video congratulates House of Commons Speaker John Bercow after challenging the Royal proroguing of Parliament amid chaotic and unprecedented scenes in the House of Commons. Let the public watch and make up its own mind.

16 Sep 2019: a former chief scientific adviser to the Government Professor Sir David King is also scared. These public fears are frightening young people and making them depressed, but the teenage activist Greta Thunberg has claimed that unless they are frightened they won’t act. These are the secular ‘hell-fire preachers’. Meanwhile academic standards are being called into question and the environment is not playing ball for the scare-mongers. Climate changes – get used to it and let us have a reasoned response how to handle it.

22 Sep 2019: climate fears used to motivate populations.

23 Sep 2019: An angry, fearful, unforgiving teenager needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Greta Thunberg was radicalised (scared by Project Fear?) through a video of starving polar bears, but polar bears are not declining in numbers. When was the hottest year? 24 Sep 2019: Donald Trump’s response to Greta’s displeasure at his appearance at the United Nation’s climate summit. Some are charging her mentors of child abuse.

16 Mar 2020: the latest fear is the coronavirus pandemic. Climate changes and coronavirus has changed the climate.