"I am the Vine. You are the branches," said the Lord Jesus Christ. John 15:5. So why are people trying to join different branches of Christ's church into one branch? Whoever thought that a vine or a tree should have only one branch? Yet this has been the unwieldy vision of the ecumenical movement, which …
Category: Politics
Delaying divine providence
There are missed opportunities in divine providence. The Lord gives opportunities that can be lost. I will mention three. 1. ‘And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious to you’ Isa 30:18. There are situations in which the Lord is waiting for us to act. There are enough Christians in Scotland, with …
Can we believe Theresa May?
Theresa May told the Conservative Party conference today that "austerity is over" and that if her form of Brexit was not implemented there might be no Brexit at all. Is this wishful thinking or reality? Is it even truthful? Is the wish the father of the thought? Why should we believe mere assertions? Can one …
The shifting goalposts of secularism
Christianity has always suffered from the readiness of its critics to judge its past by the standards of the present. Secularism is now experiencing the same, the latest phase being the Me-Too movement catching up on the sexual immorality of the 1960s and judging 1960s behaviour by 2010s opinion. The well-known sexual licentiousness of the …
Keir Starmer’s short memory
The Labour Party is in danger of repeating the mistake of the Lib Dems. When the Lib Dem Party in alliance with the Tories after the 2010 General Election broke its pledge not to raise tuition fees, it led to electoral decimation, collapsing from 57 to 8 MPs in the House of Commons in the …
Those who think that religion and politics do not mix
There are those who think that religion and politics don't mix. The truth is that their religion and their politics don't mix. However, religion and politics have mixed throughout human history, king and priest legitimatising each other's control over the people. Christianity and politics mix quite easily together, and it is Christianity which gave us …
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What is the Establishment Principle?
The Establishment Principle is that biblical principle which states that God is sovereign over secular and ecclesiastical affairs, and that He has established a relationship between these two sovereign spheres in which the state and the Christian church are to acknowledge each other as divinely-appointed institutions, to mutually support and encourage each other, but not …
The illiberal Liberal Democrat leader
Vince Cable wants to force the UK to remain in the European Union. "Brexit is not inevitable. It can and it must be stopped." He makes it clear what he wants, and why he wants a final people's vote on Brexit. It is not a desire to give a new choice to the people but …
The ark of the covenant and the third temple
There is a movement afoot among orthodox Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and to this end they have been looking for a red heifer without blemish to dedicate the temple. Although there have been discredited claims in recent decades, there are now rumours that a suitable red heifer has been found and that …
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The archbishop’s poor politics
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, told the TUC on Wednesday that “the Bible is political from one end to the other.” The problem is that Welby is a poor politician. He condemned zero-hour contracts, the gig economy and Amazon in particular for not paying sufficient taxes in the UK. Since then it has transpired …
Donald's Thoughts 