‘A chaplain saved my life…literally.’
Agnes Vella explains how a chance encounter with a Maltese priest in an English hospital changed her life forever.
saved-my-lifeliterally/5839.article
Wednesday, February 02, 2022
I Would Not Like To Be In Their Shoes on Judgement Day.
New Jersey Governor signs law allowing abortion up to birth.
(Photo: Unsplash/Maria Oswalt)(CP) Pro-life activists and religious leaders are slamming the enactment of a New Jersey bill that will legalize abortion up until the moment of birth.
Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., signed the Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act alongside Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, the leadership of the state's Senate and Assembly and Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson Thursday. The legislation will "explicitly guarantee, to every individual, the fundamental right to reproductive autonomy, which includes the right to contraception, the right to terminate a pregnancy, and the right to carry a pregnancy to term." CT.
Blogger: Christians - when are we going to abandon this tepid, gutless Christianity? - If you purport to be a Christian Church you should be making your voices heard! - MURDER MATTERS!
Oh Dear, Keir.
'Pathetic!' Former Thatcher aide slams Starmer for quoting Iron Lady in 'partygate' debate
Margaret Thatcher's former aide has taken to social media to call out Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader quoted the Iron Lady in the Commons during the debate on Sue Gray's report.
Mr Gardiner, who worked as an aide to the Iron Lady from 2000 to 2002, said: "Keir Starmer has the cheek to quote Margaret Thatcher while launching an attack on a Conservative PM.
"Lady Thatcher would have viewed the Labour leader as a pathetic woke socialist whose party was committed to blocking Brexit and defying the democratic will of the British people."
Sir Keir Starmer, who served as the Shadow Brexit Secretary under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was alleged to have made no fewer than 48 attempts to block Brexit.
With This Hate Group - It Was Ever Thus.
The Amnesty International hate group.
To shore up its lies about Israel, it now demeans the suffering of black South Africans under apartheid
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Amnesty International has produced a report that claims Israel is an “apartheid” state. This follows similar diatribes by other NGOs obsessively promoting the delegitimisation and destruction of Israel.
Their strategy is to shift from their usual fare of false allegations about Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian Arabs in the disputed territories to false allegations about Israel’s oppression of Israel’s Arab citizens.
Libelling Israel as an “apartheid state” is the unconscionable agenda of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry, about which I wrote here, which is working hand-in-glove with NGOs in a veritable axis of evil determined to bring about Israel’s destruction.
The accusation of Israeli apartheid is risible, and anyone with a functioning brain can see at a glance that Amnesty has produced a report as ludicrous as it is malevolent.
It’s ludicrous to claim apartheid is enforced against the Palestinian Arabs living in the disputed territories of the “West Bank” — because they aren’t even citizens of Israel.
It’s ludicrous to claim apartheid is enforced against Israel’s Arab citizens because they have full civil and religious rights. An Arab Islamist party, for heaven’s sake, holds the balance of power in Israel’s ruling coalition. An Arab judge sent a previous Israeli president to jail. Amnesty falsely claims:
Israel maintains Jewish domination over the Palestinian economy through the exclusion and intentional neglect of Palestinian communities inside Israel.
But as Elder of Zyon points out:
Yet Israel's largest Arab-majority city, Nazareth, is a high tech hub, hosting R&D centres from Amdocs, Microsoft, Broadcom and Salesforce. Nazareth hosts over 70 startups. Thousands of Arabs work in technology and the number is skyrocketing.
If Israel intends to have Jewish dominance over the Arab economy by neglecting Arab communities, then why does it allow so many major companies to open up in Nazareth?
Why indeed. And as this report observes, Arab Israeli superstars are making strides in culture, sports, medicine, environment, fashion, diplomacy, education and technology.
You can read excellent deconstructions of Amnesty’s falsehoods by Alex Safian of CAMERA here and NGO Monitor here. But it’s not just that its assertions about Israel’s behaviour and the situation of Israeli Arabs are baseless. More fundamentally, its claim that Israel is an apartheid state is based on a definition of apartheid that bears no resemblance to what that actually was.
As everyone knows, apartheid was the system of racial segregation and white domination and oppression of the black majority population that was practised in pre-1990s South Africa. It affected every aspect of black lives and was a regime that was particular to that country.
Amnesty itself acknowledges this. It states:
Amnesty International notes and clarifies that systems of oppression and domination will never be identical. Therefore, it does not seek to argue that, or assess whether, any system of oppression and domination as perpetrated in Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] is, for instance, the same or analogous to the system of segregation, oppression and domination as perpetrated in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.
But then, in page after page of tortuous argument, it grossly mis-states and misinterprets international law in a brazen attempt to redefine apartheid itself — and thus claim that Israel’s behaviour fits that spurious definition.
As Honest Reporting notes:
Amnesty manipulates reality through its reliance on bits and pieces of text from the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Drafted in the 1970s, only about half of the countries in the world signed on to this document. Meanwhile, modern, western liberal democracies — including the United States and the United Kingdom — did not adopt it. Additionally, Amnesty in its report used elements of the Rome Statute, which was also adopted by about half of existing nations but, tellingly, is strongly opposed by world powers including the US. In doing so, Amnesty constructed a new definition of apartheid that, obviously, had not been adopted by any country.
Amnesty redefines apartheid as oppression and domination. But these are obviously not the same as an apartheid regime. China oppresses and dominates its Uighurs; Russia oppresses and dominates its dissidents; Afghanistan oppresses and dominates its Hazara community. These are tyrannical regimes, but they aren’t apartheid states.
Where Amnesty really ties itself in knots is over its need to prove that the Palestinian Arabs are a racial group. That’s because the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute both hold that the crime of apartheid relates specifically to the systematic oppression and domination by “one racial group over any other racial group or groups” with the knowledge and intention of maintaining that regime. And the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination defines racial oppression as “based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin”.
But the Palestinian Arabs are not a race. Nor are they people of a different colour from Israeli Jews, more than half of whom are Middle Eastern in origin and dark-skinned. They aren’t a distinct ethnic group. Nor are they a national group because they were never a nation — Palestinian national identity having been invented in the sixties as an artificial construct solely in order to write the Jews out of their own history and destroy the state of Israel.
So in desperation, Amnesty tries to redefine racial groups as being “perceived as being different and possibly inferior by other groups on account of particular physical and/or cultural attributes”. A racial group, according to Amnesty, is a group that defines itself as such. And so, hey presto:
“If a group is perceived and treated as a distinct racial group, it would qualify as a racial group in the meaning of the crime of apartheid”. It is this subjective understanding of “racial groups” that is applied by Amnesty International in this report with regard to the crime against humanity of apartheid.
Moreover, under this bogus definition apartheid doesn’t even need to be applied to an entire racial group. Its oppression and domination may be achieved by targeting only part of the group. So according to Amnesty, domination and oppression of one race by another — what apartheid actually was — is now redefined as domination and oppression of some members of one race by another.
This truly magical thinking manages to diminish the monstrous racial segregation and oppression of all black South Africans who suffered real apartheid imposed by white minority rule.
And it has also managed to offend Israeli Arabs who object to Amnesty calling them “Palestinians”. They are not. They are Israeli Arabs: proud citizens of Israel with equal rights. Here is one of them:
Tuesday, February 01, 2022
Please Pray For ...
Peter, Val, Clare, Lesley, Steve, Steve, Ben, Jamie-Lee, Hollie, Helen & Joe.
Blessings.
93% of Murderers Are Men.
Interesting and unsurprising stat. (The Independent.)
Let us imagine the above figure as, instead, different groups: women, blacks, Asians, Asperger's, those confined to wheelchairs, Hindus, Moslems, homosexuals, Bananarama etc, etc.
There would then be a mega outcry from 'the usual suspects' on the liberal left.
There would be a feast of: articles, marches, claims of horrendous bigotry, 'snowflaking', attacks of the vapours, do-gooders in fretting mode along with the ever present bile and outpouring of wokeist abuse.
Facts are the facts, so WHY the need for double standards?
No Double Standards Here!
GUY ADAMS: The fate of Rustat's memorial, whose relocation is opposed by English Heritage on conservation grounds, may therefore establish an important precedent.
Monday, January 31, 2022
Interesting New Film?
Don't Look Up: prophetic or pathetic?
*Spoiler alert: This article contains details of the plot and ending to the movie 'Don't Look Up'.*
There was a time when comedians got lots of laughs mocking the religious eccentrics who stood at street corners with sandwich boards proclaiming 'the end of the world is nigh'. Not anymore.
Now such catastrophism has gone mainstream – or at least Hollywood. It's not just the end of the world disaster movies – but the fact that we are supposed to take them seriously. Hollywood is preaching to us – with all the subtilty of a flying mallet.
Netflix's latest 'blockbuster' movie is a prime example. Don't Look Up, despite being a flop in cinemas, is one of the most viewed films on Netflix andhas been garnering a lot of column inches in the press.
Sadly reviews, like so much else in our society, have been politicised. If you agree with the point being made in the film/sermon, then you will love it. If you disagree then you will hate it. But Don't Look Up is also fascinating from a Christian perspective.
Let's start with the good. This is a well-made movie, with some decent performances from Leonardo DiCaprio as the scientist who can save the world, and Meryl Streep as the Trumpesque President who dooms it. It is meant to be humorous and sometimes it is.
There are also interesting if exaggerated perspectives on the role of celebrity media, big tech and the human propensity in the face of disaster to ignore reality and turn to false idols instead.
From a Christian perspective there is one scene in which, without a hint of satire, the doomed humans turn to prayer. The troubled teen who was 'raised evangelical, but found his own way' volunteers to pray as the world is about to end. It is far too beautiful a prayer for such a satirical and dumbed down movie.
Because despite the good, this is one of the dumbest and most inane films I have seen in a long time. Don't Look Up reminds me of the worst kind of Christian movie, where the actors seem to be deliberately ham acting the most cliched Christian characters they can find, and the plot reads as though it came from a Jehovah's Witness children's magazine!
It would be difficult for me to spoil the plot, because if you haven't gathered what the whole film sermon is about after five minutes, I despair. But if you want to put yourself through the two hours and 25 minutes of torment, don't read the next few paragraphs.
The simple plot is that Earth is threatened by an approaching comet which two scientists try to warn the US president about. The president is more concerned about her poll ratings and seeks to deflect away from the approaching reality.
Evil money grabbing capitalists (including a big tech zillionaire) see the comet as an opportunity to do some mining for precious minerals; ordinary people are more interested in celebrity gossip on their mobile phones; TV hosts are dumbed down, inane and self-obsessed; the FBI are clowns; and we even have a racist, homophobic space pilot.
Of course, the earth is destroyed – but at least 2,000 people escape and take a 27,000-year flight to another planet, where, as the elect emerge from their cryogenic sleep, naked into their new paradise, the president is eaten by a dinosaur.
The purpose of the sermon is clear. Adam McKay, the writer, director and producer leaves us in no doubt: "This movie came from my burgeoning terror about the climate crisis and the fact that we live in a society that tends to place it as the fourth or fifth news story, or in some cases even deny that it's happening, and how horrifying that is, but at the same time preposterously funny."
The entertainment value, acting, cinematography is one issue. But what is most revealing about Don't Look Up is what it tells you about the values of the media elites in our culture – and they don't get much more corporate elitist than Netflix - and how they see the whole world through the narrow confines of US politics.
The basic premise of what is, to put it mildly, a smug, morally and intellectually infantile script, is that the elites don't listen to the apocalyptic warnings – and that the dumbed down populace just follow them. But in the real-world environmental activists have been warning about the imminent end of the world for all of my life.
We were told for example that all the Artic ice would be gone by 2015, and Prince Charles (hardly the non-conformist 'ordinary' scientist) told us in 2009 that we only had eight years to save the planet.
Every time one of the 'end of the world is nigh' prophets opens their mouth, they are given endless publicity by media and politicians alike. In other words, the film's premise is based on a big lie - or perhaps a delusion, given that the Hollywood elites do really seem to see themselves as oppressed truthtellers with little or no power!
What is also clear from the movie is that our elites regard working class people as uneducated, simplistic, pleasure-seeking 'deplorables'. The irony is that many university educated (indoctrinated?) will see this film as a prophetic work of genius – whilst most working-class people will see it as the smug sermon against them which it undoubtedly is.
The attempt to blame all the evils of the world – including the sin of 'climate denialism' - on Donald Trump, and those who supported him is as prejudiced and ignorant as the caricature of ordinary people it attempts to portray.
Then there is the not-so-subtle message that we really need to trust 'the science'. The only people in the satirical world of Don't Look Up who can be trusted are the 'real' scientists. The trouble is that when you adopt the belief that there is something called 'the science', then you end up negating science by pronouncing those who don't share your conclusions as obviously not being 'real' scientists.
The genius of science as a working methodology is that it can be falsified. Once you pronounce your views as de facto unfalsifiable, then you have moved beyond science into the realms of ideology.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Leonardo DiCaprio is a UN Climate Change ambassador who was photographed sunning himself on a £100 million superyacht which burns up more carbon in one week than most of us would use in one year. It's like the preacher making a series about the necessity of sexual purity while having an affair with his secretary!
The film, made by one of the largest capitalist corporations in the world, suggests that it is the capitalist corporates who want to ignore the reality so that they can make money. Whereas in the real world, it is largely the corporates who are demanding that climate change be dealt with – and that they get paid to do the dealing. There is a lot of green money to be made.
The Christian Perspective?
One Christian commentator sees Don't Look Up as a commentary on the government's response to Covid – which just goes to show that in the post-modern world we can make things mean whatever we want them to.
Don't Look Up is a good old fashioned, modernist film – with a clear moralistic message. The trouble is that it is the wrong message. At one point in the film, we are told that the end of the world is too serious to be joked about – in a film that is largely a joke.
But it does at least get this right: human beings do need to look up but not to see some approaching comet or end of the world climate catastrophism. We need to look up to see the God who has the whole world in his hands and that the present heavens and earth are 'being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly' (2 Peter 3:7).
The end of the world is not nigh yet because the Lord is giving humanity a chance to repent and turn to him. It's not that we shouldn't be concerned about the environment (precisely the opposite). But we are not to look to ourselves for salvation.
Whether it's nuclear bombs diverting comets, or mega corporations building windmills, we cannot save ourselves or the planet. But we should look up to the One who can. In this regard the prayer prayed by the troubled ex-evangelical teen is a great one for us and our leaders to pray. The only difference is that, unlike Mr McKay, we are praying to the God who is the hearer and answerer of prayer. And who can, and does, act.
'Dearest Father, almighty Creator. We ask for your grace tonight, despite our pride. Your forgiveness, despite our doubt. Most of all Lord we ask for your love to soothe us through these dark times. May we face whatever is to come in your divine will with courage and open hearts of acceptance. Amen.'
David Robertson works as an evangelist with churches in Sydney, Australia, where he runs the ASK Project. He blogs at The Wee Flea. CT.
Yes, But It IS Welby!
Your net zero push could force churches to close or leave our parishioners shivering, Welby is warned
Worried clergy say new rules on boilers would hit rural churches hardest and could bankrupt struggling parishes.
Big Article in The Guardian: Small Article in The Guardian.
Big article: "Woe, woe, woe. We must make our prisons nicer."
Small article: "Two stabbed to death in Doncaster town centre."
Sigh!
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Iran.
Religious freedom violations persist in Iran.
Staff writer 26 January 2022 
(Photo: Getty/iStock)Christians continue to suffer as a result of widespread religious freedom abuses in Iran, human rights organisations have warned.
A new joint report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Article 18, Middle East Concern and Open Doors International found that violations persisted in Iran in 2021, with at least 59 Christians arrested over the course of the year.
Thirty Christians endured some form of imprisonment last year while 34 were detained by the authorities.
At least 209 individuals were affected by judicial rulings, 35 of whom reported "intense psychological torture".
The actual numbers are likely to be higher as many cases go unreported "either because no-one raises awareness — arresting authorities frequently issue threats to prevent publicity — or because those involved request confidentiality", the organisations warned.
The report notes some positive developments. In November, the Supreme Court said that the prison sentences of nine converts should be reviewed because "promoting Christianity and 'Zionist evangelism' in private homes is not an example of gathering and collusion against internal or external security as decided in the original verdict".
"According to this decree, house-church activities and the promotion even of the pejoratively termed 'Zionist' Christianity are not crimes," the report said.
"It remains to be seen how this ruling will be applied by the Revolutionary courts, but the Christians have at least since been released while their cases are reviewed."
In another positive development, officials in the western city of Dezful decided not to press charges against eight Christian converts on the grounds that although apostasy is a crime under Sharia, it is not an offence according to the laws of Iran.
Despite these positive developments, the report warned of "inconsistencies" in the Iranian judicial system after the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a Christian couple sentenced to 10 years in prison over their involvement in a house church.
"The differing decisions highlight the inconsistencies that plague the judicial system in Iran and suggest that favourable rulings reflect the views of individual judges rather than systemic improvements at the heart of the judiciary," the report said.
Recommendations in the report include a call to the Iranian government to uphold freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) for all citizens, and the release of Christians detained on "spurious charges" relating to their faith or religious activities.
The report also calls for an end to the criminalisation of house church organisation and membership, and asks the international community to hold Iran accountable on FoRB by raising the issue during political and trade discussions involving the country.
CSW's Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: "Once again, this report provides an important reminder of the continuing violations faced by Christians in Iran.
"We urge the Iranian government to take heed of its recommendations and to end what amounts to the criminalisation of the practice of a religion the Iranian constitution claims to recognise.
"We also call for the government to ensure that all citizens, including members of the Baha'i, Gonabadi Dervishe, Humanist and Sunni communities, are free to enjoy the full right to freedom of religion or belief as articulated in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory." CT.
Ah. Hurricanes, You Say?
A NOT SO STRONG WIND
Obviously it’s a bit of a cheat when a newspaper explains snow in the Sahara . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . by invoking warming, renamed “climate change” so it can mean anything or nothing. But the idea is that the weather is getting weirder and worse, and it must be our fault because otherwise it wouldn’t be. Which brings us to hurricanes… though not them to us. Back in late November NBC allowed that “There was a collective sigh of relief Tuesday as the Atlantic hurricane season officially came to an end.” The reason they gave was that “This year was the sixth straight with an above-average hurricane season” so thank heavens that’s over, as the man said as he staggered off the golf course after playing worse than usual as always. But in point of fact, says Bjorn Lomborg, “Hurricanes in 2021 were unprecedented — as in unprecedentedly few/ Globally, 2021 had the fewest hurricanes ever in the satellite era (1980-2021)/ Did you see that reported anywhere?” To borrow G.K. Chesterton’s line about the Frenchman asked if he’d had lunch on the boat, “Au contraire.”
There Is No Justice In The UK.
Alan Carr's drink-driving husband Paul Drayton, 50, sobs as he is FREED from prison for smashing into police car while four times over the limit after winning appeal against 14-week sentence
- Paul Drayton, 50, freed from jail after winning an appeal over 14-week sentence
- The actor was warned it was a 'miracle' no one was killed during his drink drive
- Drayton had reversed into police car, narrowly missing mother pushing a pram
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New Group.
Plans afoot for new pro-life group at the UN . (Photo: Getty/iStock) Politicians, diplomats and pro-lifers have gathered in New York in a...
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Calls for investigation after monk killed at Ukrainian monastery A law firm representing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has said the ...
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£650,000 appeal launched to save two crumbling churches. St Tyfi’s Church, Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire (Photo: Friends of Friendless Churches...
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