Phew… finally some time to add to this blog.

I’ve been up and down the ‘land’ lately: showing my aunt around the Merseyside city; entertaining a visiting clergyman/professor from Finland; visiting the Bishop –whose diocese comprises the entire of Britain!- in Leeds and Bradford; visiting the university and congregation of Leicester and Nottingham, and being shown a very beautiful piece of England by the lovely and energetic Lay Minister; saw a new Bishop of Rome and a new Archbishop of Canterbury take up office; and the usual –but fun- routine of B&B guests, Andakts and sermons.

I must say that the north of England has struck a cord with me… It has a completely different atmosphere than London, one that personally seems to suit me more.

And I can proudly announce that the Vocations Committee has invited me to prepare for the Church’s Examination this Autumn (I feel like a student again!). It is just a step, but an important step… and I do work better with a deadline.

So that’s that for now; below an Andakt about a topic that was also raised by the newly installed ABofC (but I did mine the day before!):

The old saying goes: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”.

I don’t know about you, but when I see and hear Christians in the West beating their chests pretending to be martyrs, and claiming that they’re “being persecuted”, quite frankly it makes me upset and angry, quite frankly it makes my blood boil! Just because a court of law prevents you from forcing your religious beliefs onto others, or because churches are stopped from directly interfering with the democratic political process through threats of excommunication, blackmail or bribes, does NOT mean that you’re being persecuted! Real persecution means grabbing whatever you can and flee in the middle of the night because a mob with torches and other weapons are heading your way, or being passed over for a promotion again because the law doesn’t allow for Christians to hold a particular office even though you’re far more qualified. It means getting a beating from your old man for going inside a church to attend a friend’s wedding or funeral. It evens means getting car-bombed for standing up for minority rights, even if you’re not a member of that minority yourself.

There are countries were REAL persecution is taken place. For 2013, Open Doors –a non-profit organisation- published the Top 50 of ‘offenders’. No Western country has made the list!! Makes one think, doesn’t it?!

In some places being or becoming a Christian cuts you off from your family, your job, education and health services, and in a lot of instances will cost you your life! And then we would complain when we don’t get a tax cut and shout fire and brimstone!?

Barnabas, Open Doors International, International Christian Concern, etc… are all organisations that try to create interest and provide information about our fellow brothers and sisters really suffering for the Faith, in body and limb, financially, socio-economically, and so on… And if you aren’t sure, check out several of them to get as objective an info as possible.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m absolutely not advocating that Christianity and religion in general should vanish from the public arena. I truly believe that we as Christians have a valuable input to add to the societies we live in. Secularism should not equal atheism; instead the neutral plane secularism can offer should be a platform for all, Christians, non-Christians, non-believers and anything in between. But we should be careful when we take our liberties for granted and demand even more, that’s not democracy, it’s theocracy. Christianity is not a political party! The danger then is that we ourselves become the persecutors!

      So what can we Christians, who have it so well and easy, do? We can financially support organisations that help fellow Christians. We can contact our elected representatives to forget about the oil or gas for a moment and raise the issue with their counterparts in those countries where persecution exists, or at least allow for persecuted Christians to resettle in the West. We can acknowledge the existence of Christians outside our own little world and carry them in our prayers –I’ve said this before, but prayer is a great gift to give and a powerful tool to use- and some of the organisations publish prayer calendars or prayer alerts, or else just open an atlas or watch the news! And we can most certainly stop complaining and stop pretending that the entire ‘evil secular world’ is out to get us, and that our “rights are being infringed” and that we’re “entitled to religious freedom”, and be less selfish and reflect on what persecution really means!

23-03-2013, 18:36 geschreven door jojanv