An Active, Living Force

Christianity the Cornerstone of Democratic Values


By Kevin Donnelly
The Australian
April 18, 2015

[This piece was written a few years ago.  It's relevance is timeless, however. Ed.]

In his Easter message, David Cameron stated that Britain was a Christian country and that “the church is not just a collection of beautiful old buildings. It is a living, active force across our country.”

The British Prime Minister went on to argue that all schools must teach what it means to be British, which is not surprising given last year’s “Trojan Horse” ­affair, where some Muslim schools in Birmingham were considered in danger of advocating extreme ­Islamic values.

Cameron described British values as “freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions. Those are the sorts of things I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain.”

The argument that Christianity is central to British culture, especially its political and legal systems, is also argued by 22 Christian leaders in a document titled Values: The Characteristics of Our ­British National Identity.

Like Cameron, the Values document highlights the importance of liberal democratic values such as the rule of law, the sanctity of human life, a commitment to the common good and “freedom of speech, debate, conscience and ­religion”. The argument is also put that such values are “derived from our Judaeo-Christian foundations” and are “fundamental to the health of our national life”.

Cameron, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is on record as warning that multiculturalism has failed as a government policy and that the alternative must be “muscular liberalism”.

If Islamic youth are not taught clear and firm values about what it means to be British and why such a way of life is worth defending, then, Cameron argues, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they are attracted to “extremist ideology”. Neither should it surprise anyone that in Australia — a former British colony, with the same political and legal systems — liberal, democratic values and Christianity are central to our way of life, too.

Signs of an Apocalypse

When God Gives Them Up

Evil is not a constant.  Like all things human, it waxes and wanes.  One of the clearest passages in this regard is Romans 1: 18-32.  This passage describes and prescribes what Van Til called the integration into the void.

All men, apart from those quickened to life by the Spirit of God, suppress the truth to some extent or another.  God's existence, glory, power, and wisdom is overtly displayed to all men.  But men, in rebellion against God and lusting after their own glory and power, suppress these self-evident truths.  At that point, things become much worse, for the Scripture says when men attempt to suppress God it is so egregious a response that He gives them up.  [Romans 1: 24].

The first sign of a culture in the throws of being abandoned by God is an increase in lusts and "dishonouring their bodies".  Then comes a rise in homosexuality.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;  and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.   [Romans 1:26, 27]

Clearly Western civilization is in the throes of divine desertion.

Letter From America (To All Of Us)

Dear Christians in America . . . 

Get Off Your Couch of Languid Ease

Matt Walsh
TheBlaze

You don’t expect these sorts of stories to get a lot of attention, but that doesn’t make it any less outrageous when they’re ignored.

A few days ago, 29 Christians were murdered by Islamic terrorists in Egypt.  This follows the Palm Sunday attacks on Coptic churches that killed almost 40 people, which were themselves just another in a never ending string of brutal assaults on Egyptian Christians, and all Christians throughout North Africa and the Middle East, by Islamists. But the most recent incident was particularly notable for two reasons:

First, the timing. It came just days after the Manchester bombing, and it killed more people, yet it received considerably less than 1/100th of the coverage. There isn’t any acceptable explanation for why the continued eradication of Christians can rarely seem to break into the headlines, yet any terror attack in a European city will be the only thing we talk about for days. I understand why attacks against Americans will obviously receive more attention in America, but why should attacks on the French or the English spark more of our ire than the systematic martyrdom of our Christian brothers and sisters a little further to the east?

There really is no answer to that question that isn’t horrible.