WHAT A MESS!

The news has been full of it: the scandal over MPs excessive and inappropriate expenses claims. It has plunged the Parliament into disrepute. But we’re not surprised. Our nation has lost its way morally. It has turned its back on Christianity, basically. The Bible no longer has a place in public life. The authority of the Bible has been generally undermined in the mainline Churches. And if a people lose a sense of their answerability to God and become detached from the Bible as the infallible Word of God, it is little wonder that that people drift into a sort of moral quagmire where there are no absolutes, and no real righteousness. Darwinian, evolutionary, naturalistic science dominates our outlook on life these days. What sort of morality or moral sense does that deliver? None at all.  We need a return to Biblical Christianity.

Several other things of considerable significance hit the news this past week or so. It is almost incredible to think that the BBC recently appointed a Muslim as its head of religious broadcasting. It has to be said that Muslims are no more in need of salvation than anyone else in this country. But this is simply an indicator of the increasingly weakening state of Christianity in our society. What a mess.

Also, the appointment of Carol Ann Duffy as new Poet Laureate. Ms Duffy is openly homosexual and has stated it as one of her intentions in this position ‘to give the laureateship a 21st century overhaul by using the event of a royal wedding to celebrate civil partnerships.’ She is an atheist and apparently thinks of poetry as a ‘secular prayer.’ What a mess.

Then there’s the matter of the openly gay Church minister whose position is waiting to be confirmed at the Kirk’s General Assembly. This has rightly caused great concern among evangelicals. What hope for any Church that endorses such a thing? The Bible is clear: all sex outside marriage is sin. Homosexual behaviour is condemned in Scripture. The editor of the Kirk’s magazine lent support to such an appointment in the Kirk saying that after all the arguments against homosexual behaviour were based on ‘redundant’ Old Testament passages. Not so. It is perfectly clear from the New Testament too, not least in all the passages that indicate that sex outside marriage, between one man and one woman is sin (Romans 1:26-7; 1 Cor 5:1-8; 2 Cor 12:21; Ephesians 5:3-5). What a mess.

What need there is for concerted prayer to God, that there might be reformation and revival in the Churches. This is our only hope: that the Lord would come in transforming power to our society again, re-establishing the values and virtues of Biblical and Christian morality in our lives, and in our land again.

Rev John W Keddie