Where are our leaders leading us?

Last week it emerged various labor politicians have seen the fallacy of multiculturalism and are trying to rebrand it. Still calling it multicilturalism but really doing a complete u-turn towards monoculturalism. Tony Blair himself has led the way. Many people are saying, about time too. Here is my concern though. When the pendulum swings too far one way - as it clearly has in this country with the tolerance of militant groups that promote violence and mass murder - it is very hard to stop it going to far the other way. What tends to happen is people give it a little push, making it even worse! I wonder if this week Mr Blair has done exactly that. I don't remember his exact comments but it went something like this, "We will not put up with people who preach hate and stir up violence." Quite right too. "If you want to come and live in this country you have to integrate into the society. If you will not, you cannot come."
He maintains that he wants Britain to retain its multicultural status, but if you don't subscribe to that intergrated multicultural culture then you will not be tolerated. Now this is putting it stronger than the Prime Minister actually has, but not stronger than certain civil situations that are on going, including the new Sexual Orientation Regulations that the government is seeking to bring in. Let me deal with this issue on a different front though.
In various universities around the country Christian groups are being forced out because they believe homosexuality to be wrong, and aren't afraid to say so. This is labeled as homophobic and intolerant. Neither claim sticks. The Christians are not seeking to exclude homosexuals from any meeting, they are simply stating the historic and clear teaching of the world's best selling book year on year for more years than are recorded. The Christians are not saying homosexuals must stop meeting, they are more than willing to talk and debate and be friends with those of any and every sexual persuasion. Yet it is the Christians who are called intolerant, who student bodies think it it is "right" to exclude. There is no tolerance of a different culture there - the different culture and beliefs are simply considered wrong and so excluded. The Christians will not sign up to mono-multiculturalism - the unifying belief that all beliefs are valid - and so they are excluded; they are not tolerated.
The problem with Mr Blair's agenda is that it pushes us towards the situation where we will find that saying a set of beliefs is wrong or not true will not be tolerated. Literally, "If your culture won't subscribe to our culture - that all beliefs are valid - then your culture cannot be part of our culture." Or put more simply, we will only tolerate those people who agree with us; which of course is not tolerance at all. The culture that Mr Blair and many others seeks to create in this country is one where everyone agrees that there is no absolute truth, therefore everyone's beliefs are equally valid and where there is no immovable moral standard, so the law must protect everyone and attack those who hold to absolute truth and absolute moral standards, because that truth and morality makes the rest feel guilty.
The end of this road is the persecution of people who are no threat to the public, only the beliefs that public lives by. We are setting out on the road to mono-multiculturalism which ends with bigotry and persecution.
I hope my thoughts are too strong, but I fear that they aren't.

Chris

A long time ago, in a land far away .....

A long time ago - well 7 years ago, I went to a land far away - Latvia. It was at the end of my year working with UCCF. Myself and some students from the LSE went on a mission trip to Riga, the capital of Latvia to help kick start the Latvian version of UCCF. It was a very eventful trip, ask me about it some time. But I am telling you now because on that trip was Andre Mediros!
Who's Andre Mediros you might ask... ?

The link for this post is our church website. It went live a couple of weeks ago, even though it needs a few finishing touches. Our first feed back came last week asking a few details about the church as this couple, who had just arrived back from the USA wanted to visit!

What do these two stories have in common. The name at the bottom of the email from our website was... Andre Mediros. There can't be too many people with that name, thought I. And indeed I may well have been right. It was, totally by coincidence (if you believ in that kind of thing,) the very same Andre Mediros that had travelled to Latvia. It was a real joy to see him again and meet his wife Christine (brought up in Malaysia - Helen's mum's home).

Pray that the Lord would send us more workers and that people like Andre and Christine would feel the Lord's hand encouraging them to stay and join our slowly growing work. (And have a quick look at the website!)

God bless,
Chris H

Half Term Holiday

Chris had a week off during the half term which meant being able to go out and lots of fun things with boys. In fact we spent very little time at home at all and were quite exhausted by the end of it. The boys had a trip to the zoo while mummy had some girlie chill out time raiding charity shops and having a coffee.
We got to see friends that we haven't seen for a while and the boys bedroom got an underwater themed make over.
We also got to see nieces and had a trip out to the bowling ally which was great fun once we managed to convince the car that it was locked and didn't have to set of it's alarm!
Reuben is starting to become quite a chatterbox as he continually wants to try out his new vocabulary on us while Joshua is slowly starting to be able to concentrate a bit longer on activities - which will help as he starts school in January.
Chris has been ill on and off for the last 3 weeks, and what with the darker evenings and the hour change has been feeling quite drained and tired.

Reuben's favourite game

Reuben has a new favourite game. It's called "Where's my hand?!" He puts his hand in his pocket and says, "Where's my hand?" (kind of). Then he pulls it out and declares with joy, as if you're very surprised, "There it is!"

One down ...

We have now been here for one whole year. Only the Lord knows how many more we will be here for, but it is good to know that he does. Meanwhile the church has been here for 180 years! Not even Connie (who's 95) has been around for quite that long!
We had an enjoyable "anniversary" service. Dick Lucas came to preach for us again. It was a joy to have have him visit and stay for lunch. (A very good lunch it was too.) Then Kester Putman, from Highbury, spoke in the evening. It was good to have both Dick and Highbury involved. The Lord has blessed us in a number of ways over the last year. It has been very encouraging to see people moving on in their faith and responding to God's word. I think we have in place now the structures that we need to be able to push further forward. Certainly this year i want to be thinking creatively and "aggresively" as to how we can better make the gospel available and understandable to the local community.
The boys are doing well. Reuben has a chesty cough at the moment, which is particularly difficult at night and when eating. Joshua havnig a groany phase but otherwise is well. Helen, as ever, is tired, but encouraged at the moment. She really enjoyed the London Women's Convention last month.
I'm sure there's lots more to write, but I won't for the moment. Check out the church's website. It needs a little more spicing up but it is now up and running. Horrah! (And thanks to Andrew!) God bless you all,
Chris H